Memories of a Nobody
by AccessBlade
Summary: Nearly run over by former 1st Class SOLDIER, Zack Fair, a girl discovers she has no memories up to that point. With nowhere else to go, she tags along with Zack and his best friend. Traveling with them, she soon discovers that her past and future are deeply involved in the dark legacy of Jenova and whether she will be the one to bring about Gaia's destruction or salvation.
1. Memories

**After reading a lot of FFVII fanfics and watching the Crisis Core, Before Crisis and Final Fantasy VII online walkthroughs (just getting started on Dirge of Cerberus) I decided to get a start on this. It's definitely not a self-insert, that's for sure. So, a few things to clear up before we start this: **

**Zack is alive. Yup, our favorite puppy is going to be alive. Also, we're going to have two new party member (who are canon characters don't worry). Most of you will recognize one of them while the more hardcore ones will recognize the other. Hopefully, you enjoy their presence in the story. **

**One of the pairings for this is going to be CloudxOC. Yup. You heard me... CloudxOC. So for all those who don't like CanonxOC pairings, I suggest that you press the back button now. I'm not going to rag about your choice of pairings, but if your OTP pairing is CloudxTifa or CloudxAerith, then I have a feeling you aren't going to like this. Though if you're a ZackxAerith supporter, stick around. **

**Anyways, I think that's it. So now on to the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own FFVII. I do, however, own the poor sap who has lost her memories and is a complete fish out of water in her current situation.**

**Edit: Just changed Samantha's name to Rosalyn. This is the only time I will drastically change a character's name like this.**

* * *

**Prologue - Memories**

_"...I... don't want to... see any more... I don't want to hear... any more..."_

_"...I don't want to remember..."_

_"...banish... memories..."_

Those were the last words I remember as my mind faded into dark oblivion. Were these fragmented words, the last thing that I could ever recall important? I'm not sure... but I think they were. My mind tried to pierce the words together over and over again, attempting to make sense of them before I finally gave up and let the darkness overtake me once more.

I had the feeling that I've been drifting in and out of consciousness. I was vaguely aware that I should get up, but both my mind and body refused to do that. It felt as if my limbs were made of lead and my mind had a tendency of shutting down on me whenever I tried to form a coherent thought.

The terrain beneath me was rough and digging into my skin. I knew that wherever I was lying, it wasn't safe for me. But with my body refusing to cooperate with me, there wasn't a lot I could do but just lie on the ground wherever I was.

It wasn't the most comfortable thing and it certainly was not safe, but what else could I do? I couldn't move and there wasn't a lot you could do if you were immobile.

Just as I was about to resign myself to being stuck in this limbo for either as long as it took for me to get my act together or for something to come along and eat me, I heard someone's voice cut through the haze of my jumbled up thoughts.

"Hey, are you okay?"

For a moment I thought I was hearing things. But then I realized that whoever spoke was real and not some figment of my imagination when someone - most likely the owner of the voice - began shaking me.

"You know, this isn't the best place to take a nap. Monsters tend to wander around this area and you kind of strike me as being a free meal with the way you're lying on the ground like that."

The owner of the voice was male, that much I was sure of.

"Ngh..." Not exactly a confirmation that I was okay but it was better than having him think I was dead and trying to give me a proper burial as a result. I imagined that being buried alive wasn't very fun.

Focusing my will power and whatever strength I had into my limbs, I forced myself off the ground and on to my knees. Before I could push myself up even further into a sitting position, my arms decided to give out beneath me and I found myself falling forward and the dirt road rushing up to meet my face. I would have probably smashed my chin open or broken my nose had a pair of strong arms caught me as I fell.

"Easy, easy. If you're injured, you shouldn't force yourself up like that."

"Ngh... guh..." The fact that I _still_ couldn't say anything was embarrassing, but I couldn't bring myself to care at the moment.

Wanting to sit up on my own, I raised my hands and gripped the person's wrists, digging my nails into their flesh and using them as support instead. The person seemed to have an idea of what I wanted to do so instead of just waiting for me take forever to sit up, they helped me sit back up on my knees.

As soon as I was comfortable, I found myself staring into the rugged visage of a man who I estimated to be in his early twenties. He had long spiky black hair that went past his shoulders with one dark lock falling over his face. There was an x-shaped scar across one of his cheeks, which made him look like someone you would not want to mess with but that wasn't what caught my attention.

It was his eyes that drew me in.

His eyes were a bright blue, like the vast endless sky. In fact, if I didn't know any better I would say that they were glowing.

...

Or maybe they _were _glowing. The longer I stared at those vast pools of blue, the more certain I became of that fact.

I also realized that the longer he stared at _me, _the more he acted as if he saw a _ghost. _His blue eyes were wide, his face rapidly draining of colour and becoming an unhealthy shade of white and by the little choking sounds he was making, I was certain he wanted to say something but wasn't sure exactly _what. _

We weren't getting anywhere, so I decided to try and snap him out of the daze he seemed to be in.

"Is..." Oh good, I could talk. Even if I was slurring. "Is... th-there... something... on... m-my... face?"

His expression not even a second later told me that what I had said was the equivalent of taking an extremely sharp blade and stabbing him through the heart with it.

* * *

For the first time in his life, Zack Fair couldn't bring himself to look at the bright side of things, to optimistically think that things would eventually get better. Dragging a catatonic Cloud around and avoiding ShinRa -who seemed to have ears everywhere- troops intent on gunning him down would put a damper on anyone's outlook on life. Having to be on the look out for the renegade Genesis and his clones on top of that? It was enough to drive anyone into a fit of insanity.

_Insanity. _

The image of his former General flashed across his mind.

_Sephiroth... _

More images from when everything went to hell in a hand basket began to attack him.

Memories of a town burning, the bodies of the innocent villagers lining up the streets with their flesh slashed to ribbons, a badly injured Tifa lying at the bottom of the stairwell of the reactor, waking up to Hojo's sick and twisted grin and being told that they were now under his jurisdiction and that no one would come looking for them since they were known to the rest of the world as KIA...

And Rosalyn. Rosalyn who was nowhere to be seen when he woke up.

He hoped that wherever she was right now, she was alive and alright. He knew better than to hope that she was safe.

Zack immediately shut his train of thought down right there. He didn't need to think about that. Not now. He needed to be strong for Cloud and allowing himself to get lost within the memories of his stay in the Nibelheim Manor was counter-productive to getting him and his best friend out of this mess.

Re-focusing his attention on the road, he did a double take and swore when he saw the figure lying across the path. He slammed down on the breaks , desperately praying to the Planet that he wouldn't hit the person as he swerved the bike to the side to minimize the chances of impact. After what felt like an eternity -though in reality it had probably been several seconds- the bike finally came to a stop... about several inches from the figure.

The ex-First Class SOLDIER hadn't realized that he had been holding his breath until he let it out that he hadn't run over the person. Slowly, he got off the bike and bent down to see who he had nearly run over.

"Watch the motorcycle for me, 'kay Cloud?" He told his friend, ruffling the younger man's golden spikes. "I have to check up on the person I nearly ran over. Common courtesy, especially after I nearly hit them."

Cloud didn't say anything, his glowing mako eyes staring blankly ahead.

He immediately identified the person as being female. She wasn't very tall, around the 5'2 and 5'1 range. She was wearing a sleeveless white hoodie with a dark blue shirt underneath. She also had on a pair of beige shorts that came down to about her knees and on her feet she was wearing a pair of dark brown combat boots.

Zack lifted up the girl's hand to check her pulse. He also placed his fingers around her neck, just to double check. Her pulse was slow, but other than that she was alive.

Putting a hand on her shoulder, he began to gently shake her.

"Hey, are you okay?" He asked.

There was no reply but he could have sworn that he saw a twitch. That was a good sign.

"You know, this isn't the best place to take a nap. Monsters tend to wander around this area and you kind of strike me as being a free meal with the way you're lying on the ground like that." Zack decided to take the high ground and not mention that he had nearly missed seeing her and nearly ran her over as a result.

It wasn't very loud, but his hypersensitive hearing picked up a faint groaning sound. "Ngh..."

The girl's eyes slowly opened, revealing them to be a rich chocolate brown colour. Not paying attention to him (or not completely aware that he was there) the girl pushed herself up. Part way through she collapsed and he caught her before she could fall face first into the rocky path.

"Easy, easy. If you're injured, you shouldn't force yourself up like that." He said, putting his hands on her shoulders to stabilize her.

"Ngh... guh..." Was the response he got.

Her nails dug into his arms as she continued her attempts of sitting up on her own. After a few minutes, when it was obvious that she wasn't going to manage it by herself, Zack shifted his position to help her up. When she was finally sitting up on her knees by herself, she lifted up her head to stare at him.

She had medium length black hair that reached past her shoulders and bangs swept towards the left side of her face. Her brown eyes stared at him, blank and glazed over and not really focused on anything. She blinked several times, but that was it.

The moment he saw the girl's face, he could have sworn his heart stop. He also stopped breathing several times and had to keep reminding himself that he needed to inhale and exhale so that he wouldn't faint from lack of oxygen - not that SOLDIERS needed to breathe as often as the average human but they still needed to breathe.

Her face... there... it wasn't possible...

But they had the same eye shape, similar face structure, and similar hair...

She looked so much like Rosalyn that he had to look away just to prevent himself from breaking down right then and there.

The resemblance between them was so strong that the girl in front of him and his only remaining friend -other than Cloud- couldn't be anything other than sisters.

And Rosalyn had said that she had a little sister.

During their stay forced stay in Nibelheim, Rosalyn, to try and keep some semblance of their spirits up, had talked fondly about a little sister who was nine years younger than her. A little sister who was therefore two years younger than Cloud and four years younger than him. A little sister who she hadn't seen for years, when she had been forced to join the SOLDIER program against her own wishes.

A little sister who she had forgotten about after becoming a SOLDIER, thanks to the alien cells coursing through her body and messing with her memories.

And now here he was, looking into the glazed and unfocused gaze of a girl who looked so much like his friend; one of many that he had failed.

"Is..." His head shot up when he heard the girl speak for the first time. "Is... th-there... something... on... m-my... face?"

Her words were like a sharp slap to the face and Zack forced himself to look into her eyes.

"...no." The ex-SOLDIER said slowly, doing his best to ensure that his voice wouldn't crack. "There isn't. You just resemble someone I know."

"...oh."

There was an awkward silence as the girl stared ahead at the ground and Zack tried to figure out how to start the conversation back up.

"So, uh..." Zack scratched the back of his head. "What's your name? I mean, we've been talking for a few minutes but we haven't gotten each others' names yet."

He held out a black gloved hand.

"The name is-" Zack paused when he remembered that he was a fugitive running away from the very company he had used to work for.

What was he doing? He couldn't go around introducing himself to everyone, especially with ShinRa on the look out for him. And considering just how fast they acted when he and Cloud broke out of the Nibelheim manor...

"...your name?" The girl's quiet voice pierced through his thoughts.

"It's... uh-" Great, what was he supposed to say now? He couldn't back out since he already started introducing himself. Zack could lie about his name and give her a fake alias, but he didn't feel comfortable doing that.

_"If you're not sure, take a chance. Nothing ever gets done by hesitating or staying in one place just because you don't know what's ahead of you."_

Rosalyn's voice rang clear as a bell in his head.

Zack wasn't sure this was one of those times, but he figured that it was too late to take back his words. And years of listening to Angeal's lectures of dreams and honour made it that he found lying about anything nearly impossible.

"Zack Fair. The name's Zack Fair." He finally said. "And you?"

The girl who could only be Rosalyn's younger sister stared at the hand he was holding out towards her blankly before looking up at him.

"I..." She paused. "...I don't know. I don't remember."

* * *

**Finally done this chapter! Anyways, not much going on since this is just the beginning, there isn't a lot going on. The MC, however, has met the two heroes of Crisis Core and the original game, so that's something right?**

**Also, who is Rosalyn? A character that is very important to the plot of this story. **

**This is the first time I've written a FFVII story and in First POV. Hopefully, I get it right.**


	2. Breakdown

**Well, decided to work on the first chapter of the story just a few days after I posed up the prologue. Happy I have a lot of people watching, and two reviews for the first chapter isn't bad, though it could be more. Oh well. The first chapter wasn't very exciting, though I was setting up the meeting between the MC and Zack. And Cloud, though he kind of doesn't count since he's pretty out of it.**

**Hopefully, we'll get something more productive done in this chapter. Or the next at least. **

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. I do, however, own the Main Character who will finally get her name. **

* * *

**Chapter One - Breakdown**

You would think that after five long days of traveling together, being in the other person's company would be a lot more bearable.

Instead it was the exact opposite as neither Zack or I knew what to say to each other without things devolving into an awkward silence. Honestly, I was contemplating asking him to dump me at the next town we came across if this was the way things were going to be between us the entire time.

But I didn't voice this out loud. The truth was, even if I didn't want to admit it, I needed him if I was going to survive. We both knew this. That day when Zack found me, my name wasn't the only thing that I couldn't remember.

It turns out that I forgot pretty much _everything _else as well.

...

Okay... not quite everything. If you showed me something, I would probably know what it was called and how it functions.

It's just that the things I forgot was stuff like how I got there, where I was, what I was doing there just lying on the road..._  
_

I didn't even know the name of the planet I was on. When I asked, Zack gave me a strange look and told me that it was Gaia.

For some reason, that name did not ring a bell.

Then there was the fact that I didn't have anything on me but two guns, each one strapped on a leg and a messenger bag that carried a white laptop, a cellphone that Zack seemed interested in as apparently he had never seen that kind of model before and a couple of other gadgets that I decided I would check out later. And finally a golden oval shaped necklace that hung around my neck, but that was it. I had no food, no currency, and I was miles away from any civilization.

After the revelation of my memory loss and checking my inventory, it was not that hard to figure out that I wouldn't have survived on my own for very long.

Not without a miracle, I was.

Zack seemed to realize that too as he was adamant that I go with him, even though he didn't need to. I was a stranger. An amnesiac stranger, but a stranger all the same. There was no requirement that he had to because he had been unfortunate enough to stumble across me.

Or in his case, nearly run me over with his motorcycle.

But he would _not_ take no for an answer and I soon found myself getting into the passenger cart and sitting next to a slumped over spiky haired blond who also had bright glowing blue eyes. Zack introduced the blond haired man as his best friend, Cloud Strife.

There was something about Cloud I found unsettling. It wasn't just that his eyes were sometimes open when it was clear he was not conscious or that he kept staring blankly ahead... there was something off about him. It wasn't his appearance that bothered me -save for the empty stare- but there was something off about his presence in general. Something wrong. Something... sinister.

I should know this feeling, but I couldn't name it.

I got this feeling off of Zack too, but it wasn't as strong.

It was instinctive, and one of the few things I did know was to always trust your instincts. Your instincts could be the deciding factor of your survival or your death.

Or it could be that the 'instinctive feeling' I had about him was just my my overactive imagination coming up with insane theories over him being as lively as a _rock. _Even the nicest person in the world would admit that there was something creepy about how he kept staring at empty space, his eyes completely blank and unfocused.

My curiosity demanded that I ask Zack about Cloud and why he was the way he was, but a voice in the back of my head told me that it was something that tread into personal territory and fell into the category of 'things you do not ask people you just met'. After a lot of debating I decided that I would ask once we got to know each other a bit more. But for now, I would keep my mouth shut about it.

"Alright, everybody out of the car!" My musing was interrupted by Zack bringing the motorcycle to a complete halt. "Uh, I mean, motorcycle."

I turned to stare at Zack, who was grinning at me. "Huh?"

"We're going to be stopping here for the night!"

* * *

Turns out that 'stopping here for the night' meant camping out in a cave. A cave that had been previously occupied by a monster until Zack went in, killed it with his huge sword, and then proceeded to drag it to the very back of the cave before getting Cloud from the motorcycle passenger cart and propping him up against the wall.

"Hey, take care of Cloud for me while I go and find us some dinner."

I raised one of my eyebrows at the statement. "You want me to watch over Cloud?"

"Yeah. You don't mind, do you?" The grin on his face faded a bit.

I didn't. Especially when he had already done so much. "I don't. But you're trusting me to watch over your best friend when you've only known me for, what, a few days?"

Honestly, Cloud was completely defenseless and completely unaware of everything around him. And Zack was trusting me, an amnesiac he just literally picked off the middle of the road, to watch over him? I was kind of happy that he would allow me to watch over his friend but at the same time I felt that he was a bit too trusting. As far as I knew, I've done nothing to earn the trust and responsibility that he was placing on me.

He didn't even know my name!

...

...

...well neither did I, but that was beside the point!

My point was that I could just as easily be someone who was faking amnesia and was just waiting for Zack to lower his guard so that I could shoot him in the back.

Zack looked up at the cave ceiling, rubbing the back of his head and not saying anything for a few minutes.

"I trust you." He finally said.

I opened my mouth to respond to his statement but paused when I saw the beseeching look in his eyes. He didn't want me to say any more, he just wanted me to take his word on it that I had his trust and to _leave it alone_.

Blinking, I nodded slowly. "...okay. Just hurry up and get the food. Don't leave us by ourselves for too long otherwise I can't make guarantees about our safety."

Zack stared at me before breaking out into a wide grin. He ruffled my hair before running off into the forest that lay outside the cave before I could say anything.

"Just like a little puppy." I grumbled, straightening out the hair that Zack had messed up. All he needed was some dog ears and a wagging tail and he was all set.

Since Zack was probably going to be out for a while, I decided that now would be a good thing to mull things over again without interruption. About my current situation and about my companions who I could tell at a glance were not ordinary.

...their eyes were _glowing. _Need I say more?

The second thing on my mind was Cloud's state. Even with my lack of memories, I could tell that Cloud being like this was not natural. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with anything to explain why the blond was like this other than severe head injury, which I doubt was the answer. What brought him to this state of catatonia made me... curious.

And the third was Zack Fair.

Despite his imposing physique, Zack gave off the impression of being like a friendly, playful puppy.

A _giant_ friendly, playful puppy.

But there were also times that made me think otherwise.

Like when Zack had been pleading with me earlier to just take his word on him trusting me, to take it at face value.

For all his grins and cheerful nature, Zack Fair was not an idiot.

I couldn't picture him just trusting _anyone _with his best friend. So the fact that he decided to leave me in charge of Cloud while he went off hunting for dinner? It spoke volumes about his belief in me.

And despite his happy-go-lucky nature, I could tell that it was a front for something else. Over the past few days, I've noticed that Zack was constantly looking over his shoulder. As if he was expecting something or someone to jump out at random and start attacking us.

And when he thought that I wasn't looking, he let his cheerful facade crack and reveal an exhausted, weary expression.

This led me to believe that he was on the constant look out for something. Or _someone._ I asked him about this one and he just laughed and said that it was nothing to worry about and that he would take care of it. It was an obvious lie, but I didn't call him out on it since it seemed to stress him.

Other things that I've also observed during his few interactions with me was that even if his face was smiling and his voice was cheerful, his eyes said otherwise, displaying a tired and weariness that contrasted with the outgoing persona he was constantly showing. His eyes told me that he was just about ready to _crack._

A grunt snapped me out of my musings and I looked around for the source of the noise. Eventually, my gaze landed on Cloud's prone form against the wall.

His eyes were open again and for a moment I thought I saw his lips move. But when I looked again, there weren't any signs to indicate that he had moved. I walked over and bent down to his level to make sure that I wasn't seeing things.

"It wasn't my imagination, was it?" I asked him, even though I knew that I wasn't going to get an answer. "You did say something, right?"

As expected, no reply.

With a sigh, I sat down in front of him with my legs crossed and scanned his form. He didn't seem any different compared to the past few days when we were in the motorcycle. But now that I thought about it, wasn't he uncomfortable having to sit up all the time? When he rode in the motorcycle passenger cart, he had to sit up of course. But now that we were out of said cart and camping out in a cave for the night, wouldn't it have it been more comfortable and sensible to have him lie down for a bit before hitting the road again? I couldn't imagine having to sit up being slumped over all the time as being very fun, even if he was out of it.

Lifting the strap of my messenger bag over my head, I set it down and also removed my white sleeveless hoodie that I placed on top of my bag. Then I went over to Cloud and dragged him over to it. After a few minutes, I finally got him into a comfortably lying position before laying his head down on my makeshift pillow for him.

Just then, Zack chose that exact moment to return to the cave.

"See? It didn't take long to get us some food!" He paused when he saw Cloud. "Why is Cloud lying down?"

"Because I thought Cloud would be uncomfortable with having to sit up all the time?" I said, phrasing my answer as a question and raising an eyebrow to emphasize that Zack should have known that.

"...that makes sense." Zack said, a small smile on his face. "Thanks for doing that for him. I... had a lot of things on my mind to even consider that I should make him lie down once in a while."

"It's not that big of a deal." Really, it wasn't. It was just a passing thought that came to me after I saw Cloud.

But Zack was shaking his head.

"No... I... it means a lot. I've been so busy with trying to keep the two of us alive that I didn't even _think_ about his comfort."

What Zack had just said gave me the perfect opening to ask the questions that had been nagging at me for days.

"'Busy with trying to keep the two of us alive'?" I repeated. "Is there something you aren't telling me?"

Zack looked as if I had slapped him in the face.

"Uh..." The dark haired man couldn't even look me in the eye.

I needed to drive him into a corner, make sure that there was no way for him to escape. It was... cruel, but I don't think that I'd get my answers any other way.

"For the past few days I've observed that you're constantly on alert, which implies that you're on the look out for something waiting to jump out or attack you at any given moment. I suppose I could just chalk it up to you making sure you don't get caught off guard by a monster, but you're too..."

I paused.

"...you're too wound up for that. The monsters we've encountered so far don't strike me as being _that_ threatening and they don't seem to be your main concern either."

Zack didn't say anything.

"We've also come across several villages on the way, but you didn't stop at any of them. We could have easily refurbished our supplies at any of them, but the one time I made a suggestion to stop at one of them, you seemed uneasy and made up the excuse that our supplies would last us for a bit, hence why it wouldn't be necessary to stop there. But that wasn't true, was it?"

He still didn't say anything.

"You're avoiding contact with other people, which is why you don't go into any of the towns or villages. You're also reluctant to stay in one place for very long, always wanting to remain on the move. _Which _would make it harder to be tracked down."

I stared straight into Zack's bright blue eyes, which were now unreadable.

"Those observations are just circumstantial evidence, but it leads me to believe that you're on the run from someone. Or _someones._"

There was silence as Zack sat down next to Cloud. He didn't look at me for a few minutes, his gaze focused on the ground as if he was contemplated something. When he finally looked up, he was grinning but there was exhaustion written all over his face and his blue eyes, despite their glow, were dulled with pain, regret... and other emotions I wasn't quite sure of.

He wasn't even trying to mask it any more now that I called him out on it.

"Yeah, you're right. Me and Cloud are fugitives. We're on the run from ShinRa since we decided that we didn't want to be their experiments any more and broke out of one of their labs." He chuckled, which to my ears, sounded strained.

"ShinRa?" I asked and then the word '_experiments' _registered and my eyes widened.

_Experiments. _Zack had just said that he and Cloud were _experiments_.

For the first time since I've woken up without my memories, I could feel disgust wash over me at Zack's words. Not towards the two men I was currently staring at, but at the people who had experimented on them in the first place.

It explained Cloud's condition. It explained the haunted look in Zack's eyes. Most people who were experimented on tended to be scarred on one degree or another. Or completely insane.

There was a thin line in science of what was morally ethical and what was inhumane. Human experimentation, experimentation on any other living being, pretty much crossed that line.

"You don't know what ShinRa is?" Zack asked. If his reaction was anything to go by, I would say my question was pretty much the equivalent of telling him to get into a pink fluffy tutu and dance across a stage with nothing else on.

"No. Which is why I'm asking you." I said flatly. I was amnesiac, or did he already forget that?

Zack ran a gloved hand through his hair.

"This could take a while." He finally said. "So why don't we set up camp and get some food into our stomachs first before we continue this conversation?"

I could tell that he was not looking forward to it.

* * *

"So... ShinRa is pretty much the ruling government of the world and you used to work for them. But then after their strongest SOLDIER went insane on the last mission you and your friends were on, they brought you into one of their labs and experimented on the three of you until you broke out? And now they have their army pursuing you because they think you're a 'dangerous specimen'?"

I massaged my forehead, trying to lessen the pain of the migraine firmly entrenched into my brain.

What. The. Heck?

The boatload of information that Zack had dropped on me was... ugh. I was still trying to sort through it all.

ShinRa, which was short for ShinRa Electric Power Company, ruled the planet with an iron fist and had monopoly on pretty much everything. Hell, they even waged a war on an independent nation called Wutai just so they ruled the bloody world!

And for some reason an _electrical power company _acted as Gaia's world government.

On top of _that_, it had several departments that had nothing to do with being an electric company. Weapons Development, Science, Urban Development, Public Safety Maintenance, The Investigation Division of General Affairs, SOLDIER, Security, and Space Exploration.

For a company that focused on generating electricity for the masses it ruled over, it sure branched out a lot.

I can easily say that I wasn't too keen on the world government having a _Weapons Development Department_ section as well as a _Science Department _if what had happened to Zack and Cloud were any indication to go by.

Oh, and I couldn't forget SOLDIER either. The Science Department's prized project that resulted in making genetically enhanced human army that were both the heroes of the people as well as their oppressors.

The government having genetically enhanced warriors at their disposal was considerably disturbing, particularly if said government was operated by corrupt, immoral, greedy executives who were focused on their own selfish needs and would not hesitate to erase anyone or anything in their way.

And there wasn't anything anyone could do about it if said corrupt government's policing force was made up of enhanced, sword wielding fighters.

SOLDIERs were ShinRa's famed warriors that children all over the planet aspired to become when they grew up. They were stronger, faster, and had more endurance than the average man and could easily overpower someone who wasn't enhanced. I could see how people would be drawn in by this, especially if SOLDIERs were made out of be heroes. Because who _wouldn't _want to be a hero?

Then again, they didn't know the full truth either. I don't think many people would find as SOLDIER attractive if they did.

And Zack used to be a part of this elite force, which I guess would explain why his eyes were glowing. I asked him if Cloud had been one as well, since his eyes were glowing too and he was wearing a uniform identical to Zack's.

Zack had winced at the question and answered no. I didn't question him any further than that.

"Are you okay?" Zack asked and I looked up to find him staring at me in concern.

"Yeah. Just. Wow..."

"Heh." Zack smiled sympathetically, though it was a bit forced. "It's a lot to take in, isn't it? I kinda find it overwhelming too, now that I think about it."

I nodded.

The three of us were camped in front of a fire that we set up inside the cave. We had gone deeper into the cave, taking the motorbike with us to hide it from view and started a fire where we were certain than no one would be able to see the glow unless they came right to the entrance of the cave itself.

"Okay... one more question that has nothing to do with ShinRa." I said.

Zack winced. I could tell that my questions were wearing him out, but he conceded.

"Why did you take me with you?"

"Huh?"

"That day you found me in the middle of the road. Why did you bring me along with you?" I looked at Cloud. "You were already..." I paused, wanting to choose a word that wouldn't offend Zack. "...weighed down with having to take care of your best friend and you still decided to burden yourself with looking after another person. Why?"

Zack looked shocked. "You think you're a burden?" He asked.

"Isn't that what I am?"

But Zack was already shaking his head. "No. You're not a burden. I chose to bring you along because no decent person would have just abandoned you like that in the middle of nowhere in your state!" He declared adamantly.

...

...

...okay...

"Um, nice of you to think so." Even though I'm pretty sure I was a dead weight; Cloud had the excuse of constant experimentation sending him into a state of catatonia, so he didn't count. "So... back to the question?"

"You're not going to leave that one alone, are ya?" Zack sighed, leaning against the cave wall.

"No. It's the one question that has been bugging me for days. So I ask again: why?"

Zack closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again with a tired sigh. "Okay, I guess I do owe you an explanation about that. I was kind of insistent about you coming along, huh?"

He had all but chucked me into the passenger seat that day, I told him.

"The truth is, you look practically identical to one of my friends." I don't know what expression I had on my face, but Zack quickly spoke again to likely head off what he thought would be a chewing out session. "You two looked so identical that I thought it couldn't be a coincidence! And my friend, when we were in the labs, often talked about a younger sister she had. So I thought that maybe _you _were her little sister!"

He had mentioned that his third friend, who had also been an unfortunate experiment along with Cloud and himself, was female but he hadn't mentioned her name. Since I was more focused on extracting information from him, I didn't ask about that.

When I looked Zack straight into the eyes, there was not a trace of doubt in them. He was absolutely convinced that I was his friend's little sister.

I wanted to sigh so badly at Zack's assumption and belief, but I didn't want to agitate him either. The man had just taken one look at my face and then instantly assumed I had a connection with his friend? I reached up and began fiddling with the oval shaped golden necklace around my neck to distract myself from bringing up my hand and slapping myself in the face with it.

"Seriously?" I said.

"Yeah." He nodded. I knew he could tell I didn't believe him. "There are too many similarities between the two of you. And..."

He closed his eyes before answering again.

"She would have never forgiven me if I just abandoned you there."

Silence settled between us for a few minutes. I decided to break it before it started moving into the awkward stage.

"So what was her name?" I asked, for the sake of amusing him and finding out the name of his third friend. "The woman you claim is my sister?"

"It's Rosalyn. Rosalyn Maxwell. But me and her friends called her Rose."

I wasn't expecting the sudden piercing pain that caused me to drop the necklace around my neck and clutch my head. "Gah?!"

It felt like someone was stabbing an ice pick into my brain.

"Hey! Are you alright?!" Zack was by my side in an instant.

I didn't answer him as I repeated the name he just told me in my mind over and over again. Rosalyn... Rosalyn Maxwell... Rose. I knew that name. It belonged to someone important to me... someone close to me, someone I wasn't supposed to forget. It was a name... a name I wanted to put a face to, but couldn't.

And it was a name that filled me with bitterness as well.

Suddenly, Zack's theory didn't seem so far-fetched any more.

Because... if Zack was right... Rosalyn Maxwell was supposed to be my sister.

"Y-yeah." The pain was beginning to reside, though it was still there. "I... I don't suppose she told you any other names, did she?"

"She did." Zack hesitated. " Yours. Are you sure you want to hear it? I mean... if you reacted badly to Rose's name, then you might-"

"Just tell me, Zack." I cut him off. "I'm going to find out sooner or later... if your friend's connected to me... might as well find out now."

"..."

"Zack!" I snapped. "Just tell me the name!"

"Rose told me... that her little sister's name was Isabelle. Isabelle Maxwell."

The pain returned with a vengeance and I was aware of Zack's startled yell but I ignored it in favour of concentrating on the name he had given me.

Isabelle... Isabelle... that name sounded even more familiar to me than Rosalyn. But wasn't quite right. Isabelle was my name, but I also went by something else. A nick name. Just like Rosalyn had shortened her name to Rose.

Izzy...

Elle...

Belle...

That was it! My name was Isabelle but I usually went by the name of Belle!

"That's it... that's my name." I said when I was sure that I could talk without puking. "But I usually shorten my name to Belle."

"I'll just call you Izzy!" I could hear the relief in Zack's voice.

"No." I said immediately, feeling a tinge of annoyance at being called that.

"Too bad! It's what Rose called you!"

Ugh, he wasn't listening to me.

"So where's Rosalyn?" I asked. "You're here with Cloud and I can't exactly imagine you abandoning her either-"

I cut myself off when I saw Zack's face darken. With regret. With anger. With sadness. And finally with despair. A second later his face crumbled and he broke out into large, heaving sobs. His big, meaty hands covering his face as if to shield himself away from the rest of the world as he collapsed and broke down in tears.

"I don't know." He finally said. "When I woke up, I only saw Cloud floating in the tank next to me. Rose, she..."

Zack choked on his words several times before he could finally wrangle it out with a gasp.

"...wasn't there."

* * *

**And that's where I end the chapter. Now what do you think of that?**

**Also, you finally know the main character's name! It's Isabelle, though she shortens it to Belle.**

**So I guess I'll have to explain why Zack did what he did and why he's reacting like he is now. **

**As mentioned in the chapter, Belle and her older sister Rosalyn -who has now been identified as a SOLDIER and Zack's friend- bare a striking resemblance to each other. Zack is on the run from ShinRa with Cloud in tow. His trust in the very company he used to serve shattered, not to mention bitter and disillusioned as well. At the same time, he tries to maintain his optimism in front of Cloud even if his best friend is really out of it. So why would he pick up Isabelle, some girl he just met in the middle of the road?**

**Easy. **

**The resemblance between Belle and Rose. Zack feels that he's failed a lot of people: Angeal, Sephiroth, Cloud and finally Rose. I'll reveal more about Rose later on, but for now all you need to know that he feels that he failed her. In Belle, he sees his friend and he feels that leaving her would accumulate into failing Rose even more. Not to mention can you even imagine Zack just abandoning Belle on her own when its discovered that she's amnesiac and is practically defenseless? He wouldn't do that, even if it leaves him with the burden of having to look after two other people. Not with a teacher like Angeal he would.**

**Why would he trust her? He's worn down, he's tired and he isn't exactly eager to look for conspiracy everywhere, especially if she wears the face of a close friend. Not to mention that the days they've spent in each other's company has convinced him that she isn't a threat to either him or Cloud.**

**And for his breakdown at the end of the chapter? **

**Alright, place yourself in Zack's shoes. Betrayal after betrayal and then four years in _Hojo's _company? And that doesn't even figure the very Company he had pledged his loyalty to and worked for obediently for a good chunk of his life now pursuing him with the aim to gun him down. Yeah, a lot of people would breakdown in his situation. Not to mention Belle's ruthless interrogation bringing up stuff he had tried not to think about. He has a lot on his shoulders.**

**One thing I want to make clear: portraying Zack crying is not meant to make him look wimpy or weak in any sort of way. In fact, I wasn't planning on having him breakdown into tears in this chapter. It was meant to represent his breaking point and the stress finally getting to him after every shitty thing that has happened to him over the course of seven years. Because if there's one thing you should remember... heroes are human too. And so are villains.**

**Hmm... I think that's about it. I guess I'll see you guys in the next chapter!**


	3. Gongaga

** Muu... nobody reviewed the last chapter. What, did you not like the idea of Zack having a breakdown? I assure you that this was the first and only time he would ever have one. He was just stressed and his friend's look alike little sister was being a jerk by bringing up stuff that he was trying to suppress. **

**Anyways, on to the story.**

**Once again, not much action but we're getting there. But a lot of dreaming gets done!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Final Fantasy VII compilation. I do, however, own the main character who has been identified as Isabelle. Also, review please! I want to hear your input!**

* * *

**Gongaga**

Zack cried himself to sleep.

I wasn't exactly sure how long it took for him to slip into the deep oblivion of his dreams but I estimated that his crying jag lasted about an hour or so, give or take a few minutes. Though I wasn't exactly timing him; just sitting there and waiting for him to let it all out.

The entire time he cried, Zack was apologizing either to Cloud or to other people who weren't there. He mentioned several names with Angeal, Aerith, Sephiroth, Tifa, a Mrs. Strife who was likely Cloud's mother, and... Rosalyn standing out among them. He also sobbed at his failure of being a hero, of being unable to protect those around him. He mentioned a Nibelheim and how it was in flames and burning down all around him and how could his friend and someone he respected to the highest degree _do such a thing_?

As I watched him cry and apologize to his inner demons, I could feel guilt gnawing at me and twisting my insides. It got worse the longer I watched. I wanted answers as to why Zack was being pursued by Gaia's world government and why he had decided to take some random girl along with him; not cause a breakdown.

There was still the occasional sniffle when he finally passed out but he had otherwise calmed down.

I waited a few minutes before moving towards him to see if he had really fallen asleep. Several seconds of watching his chest rise and fall with steady breathing and I confirmed that he was out like a light.

Which meant that I would be the one who stay would stay up tonight and make sure that nothing would came out of the shadows and attacked us. I didn't mind, considering that I just made the usual night watchman burst into tears.

It was the least I could do considering how much of an ungrateful jerk I had been.

But at the same time I felt that he needed this. Not the force into a corner and reduce him into a sobbing wreck part, but more of the 'to-let-it-all-out- before-the-weight-of-the-heavy-burden-crushes-me' part. It was obvious that at this point, Zack had been bottling up his emotions and stress from not only being betrayed time after time by those he had believed in, but also the trauma of being treated like some sort of lab rat and now running from people who wanted him and his friend silenced. I had no doubts that it was only a matter of time before it all caught up with him, but my interrogation had accelerated the impending breakdown.

I made Zack as comfortable as I could and then lay him next to Cloud.

"Hope you don't mind, Cloud." I told the blond. "But I think he needs some sleep too. It must have been exhausting watching over us the entire time."

I swore I saw something in Cloud's glowing eyes flicker, but it could have easily been light reflecting off of the fire and not Cloud showing any signs of life.

When I was sure that I couldn't make Zack any more comfortable than I had already tried, I went back to my place across the fire and sat back against the wall, bracing myself for the night.

Zack had taken me under his wing, looked after me when there was no one else around to do so and I how had I repaid him? By forcing him to talk about things that brought up painful memories and making him cry.

Fantastic job there, Belle. Way to go and break people.

If he decided to ditch me after this, I wouldn't blame him and would actually quietly comply with his demand. Even if it meant my survival rate plunged down by a landslide.

"Guess I'll have to wait and see tomorrow..." I muttered, even though no one could hear me.

* * *

_For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Zack felt at peace._

_Which he found odd because he shouldn't have. ShinRa was chasing him, Cloud was suffering from Mako poisoning, he had to protect both Cloud and Isabelle from both ShinRa and monsters and... _

_..._

_...and he had to see Aerith. How long had it been since he last saw her?_

_..._

_Zack couldn't afford to rest! There were still a lot of things he needed to do!_

_..._

_..._

_...but he couldn't _move_. No matter how much he tried, no matter how much he struggled, his limbs felt like they were being weighed down. He couldn't even open his _eyes_._

_...And..._

_..._

_...he was so tired._

_He was so, so very tired._

_"Sorry Zack." A voice rang out, breaking the silence. "You can't rest. Not yet."_

_Zack's fading mind became alert. He would recognize that voice anywhere! One of the voices he would know even if he lay on the cold, unforgiving ground dying._

_"Rose!"_

_Zack could feel the relief flooding him at hearing his friend's voice, even if he couldn't see her.  
_

_"Yeah Zack, it's me. I'm glad you were able to get out of Hojo's clutches." Rose's voice echoed in his mind. "At the moment you're unconscious and I'm talking to you through your dreams right now and I don't have much time, so listen carefully." _

_Zack would have frowned if he could have. Rose sounded... tired. Sad. World weary. Granted that being Hojo's test subject would change people drastically, but hearing her as she was now just seemed _wrong_. He was used to seeing her smile all the time, teasing other people in a light hearted manner and then running away snickering whenever she got caught pulling off her usual antics as she ran away from the victims of her pranks. The only other times he had ever seen her upset was when Angeal and Genesis had deserted... and when she had thought that she had driven Genesis to his own death at Modeoheim.  
_

_But the last time he saw her, she was slowly becoming a shadow of her former-self. No longer did she did she come off as being younger than she really was, but older and wiser than her actual twenty two years of age_.

_She tried to hide it with smiles and happy stories, but both he _and _Cloud saw through the mask she often put up to hide her actual feelings. When she started getting her memories prior to being recruited into SOLDIER back, it revealed a whole other layer to her, one he hadn't know about despite the number of years they had known and worked together. _

_A more broken and human side to her, especially when she talked about the eight year old sister she had unintentionally left behind. _

_Because like Sephiroth, Rose didn't seem quite human to him. From her strength, to her vitality and to the stubborn nature that never allowed her to give up, give into despair or lose hope no matter how bleak the situation seemed. It was she who kept their spirits up when Hojo was conducting his experiments on them and she who hugged and comforted them after a particularly traumatic encounter with the mad scientist._

_"Rose, where are you?!" Zack demanded. "When I woke up in the lab, I didn't see you anywhere. And I looked! The only other person in the Nibelheim Manor was a guy sleeping in a coffin!"_

_Silence and then a soft sigh._

_"That's because Hojo deemed you and Cloud as failures and placed you in mako tanks to mutate. He... he tried to transfer me to Midgar for further studying." There was a faint bitterness in the unusually demure Rose's voice, which to Zack just sounded plain wrong. _

_"So where are you now?" Gaia, did Hojo _still _have her? _

_It wasn't the first time he had entertained this thought, but Zack actually wished that he had failed that mission back then and had allowed Genesis to succeed in murdering Hojo on Hollander's orders all those years ago. Hollander had been an amoral bastard too, especially considering how he had manipulated and used Genesis to do his bidding, but he had nothing on _Hojo _who saw nothing wrong with the fact that his 'subjects' were sentient beings who felt pain and screamed in agony whenever he cut into them with a scalpel_.

_As Rose had said more than once, Hojo was the true monster. _

_More so than what Genesis and Angeal claimed to be when they had discovered the spider's web they had been trapped in ever since birth. Even _Sephiroth_ was a victim. He only became a monster that he had claimed to be shortly after being driven insane by what he had read in the library._

_There was no excuse to what the former First Class SOLDIERs had done, but the revelations of what ShinRa had done to them since birth had broken something in all of them._

_Zack, Rose and even Cloud who lost everything to Sephiroth's insanity had agreed on that.  
_

_And Zack was certain that had he not been witness to his mentor and his friends' rampages as well as Cloud and Rose's presence, he would have cracked too. He didn't want to think about what might have happened if he had cracked and done what the Big Three did when they lost it._

_"I can't tell you Zack, but I'm hidden away from the clutches of both ShinRa and Jenova." There was a pause and Rose's next words came out rushed. "Look, I don't have long before _she _becomes aware of my presence, so I'll make this quick: look after Isabelle for me. Because right now, I'm in no position to." There was a pause. "...and I no longer have a right to call her my sister."_

_"So... Isabelle is your sister?" Zack knew that the girl he picked up a week ago and his missing friend were connected, but it was still a relief to actually have actual confirmation to the fact. Even if it was through a dream._

_And what did Rose mean by 'she had no right to call Isabelle her sister'? Before he could ask her, she spoke again._

_"Weren't you the one who was insistent that she was?" There was a light teasing tone in Rose's voice and for a moment she sounded like her old self. "But to answer that question, yes, we're related by blood. Check her necklace if you have to."_

_Just when Zack thought Rose was done talking, she left him with one last slightly chilling statement._

_"...also, one last thing. _Don't_ make any reckless or hasty decisions. It could get you killed." A pause. "No, it _will _get you killed. Be... be careful, Zack."_

_At those words, Zack nearly retorted that he was _NOT _a headstrong reckless idiot who flailed around with a sword in hopes that he would hit something. Angeal, Sephiroth, Genesis and even Rose herself had taught him better than that!_

_But he wasn't able to as he suddenly found himself being jerked back into the world of wakefulness. _

* * *

I thought that the next day I would be completely exhausted and that I was going to have trouble keeping my eyes open.

Instead I was still a little sleepy but otherwise fine. Must have been used to pulling all-nighters or something.

A groan had me snapping my head up and looking in the direction it had come from. Zack was pushing himself off the ground with one hand while the other was clutching his head. There was a grimace on his face as he looked around, likely to try and figure out where he was. He _did _just pass out after emotionally exhausting himself.

When his eyes landed on me, I gave him a shaky smile and waved.

Zack's response was to stare blankly at me, blink, and then turn bright red as the memories of the night before hit him full force.

"Um... have a good sleep?" I asked.

Lame, but it was the best thing I could come up with considering last night's events since _'good morning' _didn't seem all that appropriate.

"Uh..." Zack said. "Yeah. It was pretty good."

"Great." I smiled again, making it a bit bigger than the first one I gave him. "You deserved it."

Zack was suddenly staring at me again.

"What?" I said, when he wouldn't stop staring.

"You..." His eyes widened and he broke out into a huge grin. "You just smiled! Twice!"

That comment had me taken aback. Was it really that big of a deal? Then again, the only thing I could remember ever doing the entire time was keeping quiet and talking when it was necessary or if Zack was asking me something.

Okay. Yeah. I could see where Zack was coming from. I hadn't been very emotive in general.

Zack chuckled, a grin on his face. "You should smile more often. You have a nice pair of dimples and its a shame to not show them off."

"Thanks?" Wasn't quite sure what to say to that. I searched my brain for something else to say when Zack spoke first.

"So..." Zack looked sheepish, his eyes looking to the side to avoid my gaze. "About last night..."

And already I could tell where this was going. I cut him off before he could start apologizing for the breakdown that _I _had caused.

"You have nothing to apologize for." I said. "It's me who should do the apologizing."

This had sounded _so much easier_ in my _head_.

Before I could even think about backing down, I continued on. "I... I brought up some painful memories when I was asking all those things last night, thinking of only answering my own questions and not even considering your feelings on the matter." I took a deep breath and finally said what I had been planning the entire time I had been watching him sleep. "And, um, I'm sorry."

I felt as if I should have said more, but sometimes simplicity worked best.

_That _and I had no idea how else to proceed.

Several minutes passed and when it was obvious that Zack was just going to continue staring at me (because that's what he did after my apology- just stared) I decided to say something before this became a long, drawn out staring contest with neither of us willing to break the silence.

"What?" I said. "Do I need to apologize more?"

I hope I didn't. Did he have any idea how hard it was to get that out?

My words snapped Zack out of whatever daze he had been in and he held out his hands and chuckled. "No, no." He said quickly. "Sorry, it's just that... I... wasn't expecting you to apologize. Er, I mean..."

"Yeah, I don't really think I'm the type to apologize either." Considering how much effort it took to get the words out and apologize for my insensitivity, apologizing was probably something that I wasn't used to. I hesitated, before saying, "Also, I understand if you wouldn't want traveling with you any more."

I decided to change the subject. We've had enough awkward moments and silences to last us a life time.

Though in hindsight, talking about how I would willingly leave the group if he wanted me to was not the way to go.

'Woah, woah!" This time, it was Zack who interrupted me. "Who said anything about that?"

"Well I assumed that you-"

"Okay, no." Zack cut me off again. "You're still coming with me and Cloud. I'm not kicking you to the curb just 'cause you made me cry."

Zack's face flushed red at the last sentence.

I found myself smiling again; guys didn't like admitting to the fact that they cried. Even with his friendly, bouncy nature Zack was no different.

"Hey! You smiled again!"

* * *

_Zack's scream of pain echoed in my head as gun shots cracked through the air. Afterwards, everything was just one huge blur as I raced out of my hiding place and drew my own weapons._

_When I became aware of everything again I was holding a gun in each hand, smoke drifting out of the muzzle of my weapons and it was raining. Within seconds, I was soaked. But it didn't matter when I spotted the four figures sprawled a few meters away from me. _

_There were four men lying on the ground: three of them dead and one of them barely clinging on to life._

_I could feel my eyes widen in complete disbelief._

_The one barely clinging on to life was the one who had picked me off the road and took me along with him when I had no where else to go, even when he was already on the run from a corrupt corporation that intended to kill him and his comatose friend._

_"Zack!" I tried to go over towards him but tripped and fell on to the ground, my guns hitting the earth with a clatter. Ignoring the pain that throbbed in my side, my arm and now my knees, but I ignored that. I needed to go over to Zack _now.

_The pain was temporary. I would live._

_Not bothering to pick up my guns, I crawled over to where he was, pulling myself by the tips of my fingers._

_"Oh...god..." I wretched, feeling sick to my stomach and wanting to throw up. "Zack..."_

_One look told me that he didn't have long to live. He was riddled with more bullets than I though possible and he was _still _alive somehow. I guess that came with being a SOLDIER since they were ShinRa's strongest and most famous warriors. But being more resilience meant just that; they were harder to take down but that didn't mean they were infallible._

_Because in the end, SOLDIERs were still human. _

_And humans had short, mortal life spans._

_It was also likely the infantry troops were carrying weapons that specialized in taking down a SOLDIER. You did not create that kind of power without coming up with a back up plan in case things went horribly wrong._

_Which had already been proven several times within the past seven years with the insanity that inflicted ShinRa's poster boys - The Big Three._

_Zack's eyes that had been staring up at sky soon focused on me when I approached him. _

_"Izzy..." He said, a relieved smile on his face. "You okay?"_

Me_? __He was worried about _me_? He was soaked to the bone, pumped with more lead than should be possible, bleeding out his life in agony and he was _fucking worried about me?

_There were a multitude of things I wanted to say from how he should be worried about himself when he was the one dying to how sorry I was about being so goddamned __useless. _

_But instead, I summed up my answer with one word that I was barely able to choke out._

_"...yeah."_

_I stared, feeling something pricking the side of my eyes. I lifted my hand and rubbed them. _

_I couldn't cry. Not now. _

_I couldn't break down. Not yet._

_I could do that... after it was over._

_As the feelings of despair and utter helplessness swept over me, I couldn't help but be amazed as well._

_How could he just smile like that? He was broken and bloody; lying on the ground with numerous wounds all over his body bleeding out on to the rocky floor, clutching the Buster Sword and waiting for death to inevitably take him. Most people in his situation would curse their fates, scream at the heavens that life was unfair or sob at the fact their lives were ending much sooner than expected and that they still had a lot to do._

_And Zack had every right to do that._

_But... the very guy who kept having everyone else's problems, issues and_ stuff _in general__ shoved on to _him _because they couldn't solve it themselves_ _was asking if I was okay. As if he just hadn't been manipulated, deceived for a good chunk of his life and then killed when he became more of a liability than asset by the very company he had worked his hardest for and sworn his loyalty to._

_Used and then tossed to the side like his life, his dreams and his ambition meant_ nothing _to them_.

_And what was I going to tell Cloud? He just woke up earlier, before the battle, extending his arm towards his friend's back and then calling his name when Zack left to fight off the army that came for them._

_How was I going to explain to him that his best friend was _dead_? It was bad enough being catatonic after constant experimentation, but to wake up to _this?

_Life could not be crueler to him any more than it already was._

_ I heard something behind us and whirled around to see who it was, cursing that I had left my guns where I had dropped them. _

_It was Cloud, crawling over and desperately making his way over to his best friend just as I had moments before._

* * *

"...Iz...Izz...Izzy..."

"Ngh..."

"Izzy... Izzy..."

"...go...away...five more...minutes..."

"IZZY!"

"GAH!" I said, unintentionally flailing my arms at being so rudely jerked awake.

"Hey! Izzy!" When I didn't stop flailing, Zack grabbed my arms and forced them to stop moving. "Calm down!"

I did as he said. It wasn't like I could do much with the SOLDIER holding me by the wrists and pinning me down with that sky blue gaze of his anyways.

Blinking several times, I realized that the scene of watching Zack die in the rain was all dream. Considering that he was standing in front of me, bullet free and well alive, it must have been.

But it had been so vivid that for a moment, I thought that Zack was actually right in front of me dying. I could have sworn that I was still feeling pain coming from the places where my dream self had been shot at when she burst out from the rock she and Cloud were hiding behind and killed the mooks who dealt Zack the final blows when he was down.

The cowardly tactic that I had seen made me seethe.

That was the extent of just how real it had felt to me.

"Can you let go of my arms, now?" I asked when he was _still _staring at me and holding my wrists in a tight grip. My arms were starting to hurt.

"Are you calm now?" Zack shot back.

"Yes." As if I was going to say no.

When he let go of me, I immediately stood up and grabbed him by the head, jerking him towards me. Zack let out a startled exclamation at this, but I ignored it in favor of getting a closer look at him.

It was a dream.

It had been a dream.

But I just had to make _sure. _

In my dream Zack's face was smudged with dirt and he was bleeding from the head. But now, his face was perfectly clean and dirt free, though I did find his eyes fascinating. Absentmindedly, I gripped his cheeks with my fingers and pulled as hard as I could.

Huh. They were pretty stretchy.

"H-hey!" My wrists were back in Zack's hands again and for the first time since we met, he gave me an annoyed look. "What's that for?"

I didn't want to tell him that it was because I dreamed about him bleeding to death in the rain so I said, "I wanted to see just how far I could stretch your cheeks!" I declared.

...

...

"What." Zack simply said in a tone that seemed uncharacteristic deadpan of him as he dropped my arms and stared.

"...yeah. Just wanted to test out my theory." I threw in a smile for good measure.

Zack blinked and then shook his head, his face pressing into his hand in exasperation.

"Okay," He said slowly as if he was talking to a crazy person. "I just thought that I'd let you know that we reached my home town."

I was out of the passenger cart in a flash. Zack's home town? After being on the road for over a week, it would be nice to stop at a place that was bustling with people. It was nothing against Zack or Cloud, especially considering their situation of being on the run, but it got kind of...

...ugh, it was hard to describe. Forget it.

I squinted my eyes as I tried to see where Zack's hometown. "What's it called?" I asked.

"Gongaga."

I let out a giggle before I could stop myself. Gongaga? Seriously? Who named a village that?

"Gon-ga-ga." I said out loud. It was pretty fun to say. "Gon-ga-ga."

"Okay, okay." Zack ruffled my hair after I repeated the name several times, amused by how it seemed to roll off my tongue. "I get it. It's a bit of a funny name, but hey, it's the name of the place I've lived in since I was thirteen."

Thirteen? Where the heck has he been for the past ten or so years? I didn't know his age, but I estimated that he was in his early to mid twenties.

"I ran away from home and went to Midgar to join the SOLDIER program." He said, interpreting the unspoken question I wanted to ask correctly.

Oh.

"Zack, what's that over there?" I pointed in the direction of the metal ruin, changing the subject before he could start thinking of painful memories again. I noticed it when I was trying to find his hometown; it was hard not to. "It looked like something over there exploded."

"What?" Zack said, eyes squinting in the direction I was pointing at. "That wasn't there before. Funny, that looks like where the-"

Zack's voice trailed off and his face paled.

"Zack?" I waved a hand in front of him, not liking the shade of white he was turning. "Zack, are you okay?"

Next thing I knew, I was being shoved into the passenger cart and Zack was gunning the engine of the motorcycle at the speed of what had to be 300 miles per hour. I held on to Cloud for dear life.

Not because I was scared or anything. Just thought that Zack wouldn't have appreciated his blond best friend being tossed out on to the side of the road because of his crazy driving.

* * *

"...no."

"Zack?"

"...no. No! This can't be!"

This had been going on for about ten minutes. When we got to the base of the twisted metal structure, Zack braked the motorcycle and jumped out as if possessed. He rushed closer to the base, stared at it for three minutes of mouth gaping silence and then collapsed on his knees. He was in extreme denial about something, but I had no idea about _what._

Getting tired of him not answering my question of what he was in denial of, I decided an intervention was in order.

"ZACK!" I hit him upside the head as hard as I could.

Should you ever come up with the fantastic idea of hitting a SOLDIER, here's a word of advice: don't. Punching Zack was akin to punching a steel wall. It hurt. A lot.

However, my impromptu use of violence did get his attention as he was now wincing and rubbing at the spot that I hit with a grimace.

"I... uh... Izzy?"

"Mind telling me what has you so shell shocked?"

Zack ran a hand through his spiky hair. He looked really upset; but not to the point of a break down. Thank god, because I don't think I'd be able to handle another breakdown.

"I... this... there used to be a reactor here."

Reactor... reactor...

The only reactor that came to mind were the 'mako reactors' that ShinRa employed to draw out energy from the Planet.

"'Used to'?" I repeated. "Well I don't see anything except metal... oh."

Now that I thought about it, the pieces of metal weren't the only things lying around my feet. There was also debris and broken concrete and...

Huh. Looks like my theory of something exploding wasn't so far fetched.

The disfigured metal object I saw from the distance made so much more sense now.

Zack was back on his feet, his eyes burning with determination.

"Izzy, you wait here with Cloud while I go check on my parents!" I didn't even get a chance to say anything as he turned away and headed, presumably, where his parents lived.

"You're leaving me to babysit Cloud _AGAIN?!_" I screeched after him.

* * *

The foliage of Gongaga's surrounding plant life rustled, silent spectators to the unfolding battle.

...but what no one realized was that the thick bushes hid very real spectators, two figures, watching the clash with a taut, eerie silence. It was a distance too great for an average man to observe from, but these observers were hardly 'average' in any sense of the word. Not with the air itself quaking from the power hidden just below the surface of reality.

Fortunately for everyone on Gaia, neither of them were interested in world domination or world destruction as most Psychopaths and their cousins Sociopath and Megalomaniac were known for, both of them too cold and bitter to waste time with such fanciful dreams.

It was the man who drew the eye first.

A midnight black jacket, edges in jagged tatters, shifting in the faint breeze. It covered a white, collared shirt, his black gloved hands hidden in his pockets, the man was a study in monochrome, his entire ensemble summed up in deep black and stark white. It was only in looking closer that a speck of color became apparent. Hidden behind narrow, black shades, shadowed by a fringe of smooth, jet-black hair, were the man's eyes.

A left eye of burning gold, and a right eye of blazing red, crimson sparks dancing from it.

A strange individual, to be sure...but to any multiversal wanderer, the rumors made him unmistakable.

A monochrome shadow, the stranger whose age remained a mystery, sightings of whom abounded throughout the eons on multiple worlds, the ghost between light and the dark, crushing evil and injustice without remorse or pity.

Only ever mentioned in passing, he was only there if you knew where to look, hidden in the background behind the heroes and legends of the worlds he'd been to.

Never in the spotlight, but always, always a power to be reckoned with.

Tens of thousands of lifetimes in his wake, those cold eyes had seen civilizations rise, and worlds fall, often with his hand involved in one or the other, always pursuing justice, and his own unknown goal with a single-minded ruthlessness that often struck his allies as bordering on the cruel.

He was the greatest of allies...and the most terrible of enemies.

He was both salvation and destruction.

He was justice.

He was the nightmare.

He was the man they called Alexander.

Alexander J. Darkbreaker.

Not since the monstrous Calamity had hurtled towards the planet two thousand years ago had such an entity existed upon Gaia's surface. Had it not been for the constant masking of his power, of what he was, it was no small feat to imagine the great and terrible WEAPONs of Gaia stirring from their slumber once more, to instinctively confront him in a battle that would scar the planet regardless of the victor.

But once your eyes drew away from the cold, ominous figure of the monochrome stranger, it was to see the girl next to him.

A white cloak wrapped itself around her slim frame, features concealed by a hood. Like her companion, she too radiated an otherworldly sense of power...but in a different sense. Where the Darkbreaker radiated the cold of space, a distant, inexplicable phenomena, she was wounded. A sense like peering through a broken glass to see the painting on the other side, something once beautiful, now appearing distorted and damaged through the cracks in the glass. Not physically, as from what little could be made out under the voluminous cloak, she possessed a willowy, slender beauty, but a heavy, pressuring aura hung around her, as if despair itself had draped a mantle over her shoulders.

It was the pained beauty of one crushed under a devastating emotional weight...but still stood upright nonetheless, forcing their way onward despite it.

It was enough to unsettle any normal person simply by looking at her...but the man next to her seemed to ignore it entirely, a black, alien monolith amidst a sea of anguish.

The sense of power from her was not as great as the Darkbreaker's...but in a way, it was more understandable, something from the laws of the world, something that could be believed...unlike the alien, otherworldly feel of the monochrome figure, something from beyond the edges of human comprehension.

"...you're not going to do anything?"

The air resonated slightly, the Darkbreaker's voice sounding.

"..." The woman kept her gaze on the girl identified as 'Isabelle Maxwell'.

"...no. I see no need to at this time."

Her voice was soft; tinged with sadness and defeat.

A silence.

"Even if it means watching that girl be thrown around like a rag doll in the process?"

"You and I both know that she will make it through the battle alive." His cloaked companion scoffed. "Hollander is hardly a challenging opponent compared to the other obstacles and trials she and her friends will go through. If she cannot beat an obese scientist who is now dying because of his desperate stunt of injecting Genesis Rhapsodos' cells into his own body just to prolong his survival, then she would hardly stand a chance against that Thing and her son."

"The Calamity of the Skies..." The Darkbreaker spoke again, light flickering across his shades as files of data scrolled through the lenses.

"Considered an Eldritch Abomination by even the most saintly of cosmic powers. Was vastly weakened by the now mostly extinct warrior race, the Virtus, but was still able to wreak havoc and destroy most of the Cetra civilization when she landed on Gaia 2,000 years ago in her half dead state..." It was an unneccesary gesture, almost all recorded knowledge of the Calamity having already been perused by him previously.

"They call it Jenova."

His red and gold gaze slid briefly across to his companion, their depths unreadable. After a minute, he simply exhaled, readjusting his stance as he turned back to the spectacle unfolding in the distance.

"Jenova, huh...?"

His eyes fell now on the girl who was spilling her grievances to her comatose companion about how the 1st Class SOLDIER Zack Fair kept ditching them and leaving them on their own to fend for themselves. The girl Isabelle Maxwell may not have known it, but she was the one at the heart of his companion's desperate plan to end Jenova, her legacy, and all it entailed, once and for all.

The monochrome stranger was silent for a moment.

Then, for a brief instant, the ghost of a smile played across his features, smooth and dangerous.

This...could prove interesting.

* * *

**Whew finally done! I promise that there will be action in the next chapter as it will be... dun dun dun dun dun... Belle vs Hollander! **

**And that's all I'm going to say for that tale.**

**Anyways, the last part has DarkShiftRising's character, the Darkbreaker, crossing over to the FFVII universe. I cannot thank him enough for letting me use the Darkbreaker for my story. The white cloaked character is mine by the way. **

**In case you haven't realized it yet, this story is about to become AU really fast. Some parts that will deviate from canon and others, well, I'll try and make it a surprise.**

**Also, review! I'm not one of those authors who threaten to hold her story hostage unless the reviews start pouring in, but it would be nice to know what you guys think! And it would also make me feel very appreciated, because right now I'm getting really frustrated about whether people like reading this or not and whether I should bother continuing. I'm not saying that you have to write an essay, but it would be really nice to know what you think even if its a 'I like this' or 'Please continue'. **

**Guess I'll see you guys in the next chapter!**


	4. Belle vs Hollander

**Okay, after taking a break over the past few days I've decided to start on the next chapter. Because finally we've entered the story line! And for those who have read the notes in the last chapter, you should all know that the battle is going to be Belle vs. Hollander!**

**Hope you're ready for this chapter!**

**Edit: Also, I changed 'Samantha' into 'Rosalyn'. That's going to be the last major change I'll make.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. I do, however, own Isabelle and her big sister Rosalyn. **

* * *

**Chapter Three - Belle vs Hollander**

"Behind you." Cissnei purposely alerted the 1st Class SOLDIER to her presence.

The startled expression on Zack's face when he whirled around to face her would have normally amused the Turk. But instead she felt nothing but exasperation. The chances of Zack showing up in his hometown was more than likely, but it still exasperated her when she got the reports from her colleagues that he was making his way towards Gongaga.

With the straight-forward way the SOLDIER usually did things, it was amazing he managed to stay out of ShinRa's grasp for as long as he already had. It wasn't hard to figure out his movements and eventually showing up in the village he had been born and raised in was one of his top ten predictable movements on the list.

"So predictable..." she sighed. "Couldn't you guess that your hometown would be the first place we looked?"

Zack huffed, his eyes scanning her warily as if he was expecting her presence there to be a trap. The friendly light in his eyes and the broad smiles he used to give her whenever they met up after work to hang out was gone, replaced by world weariness and distrust.

Cissnei felt a pang in her chest but ignored it. She couldn't blame the man; if what she read in the Nibel Manor was true, then her friend had every right to hate the very company he once served.

Even Cissnei, who had been loyal to ShinRa for as long as she could remember, was beginning to have her own doubts. Doubts that had started when she read the reports on what was referred to as the 'Nibelheim Incident' and only started to grow when she became more alert to the darker aspects of ShinRa after two of her friends and an infantryman they were fond of were handed over to the mad scientist.

Her growing distrust of the company was shared by her fellow Turks Alexandria and Lise (code named Shotgun and Gun respectively), who had never been quite the same since Hojo had not only taken in Zack and Cloud, but Rosalyn as well.

The shuriken wielding Turk was aware that some of the things that ShinRa did to achieve their goals were, for the lack of a better term, shady. But because of the ease and the prosperity that the company had brought countless people around the world, she continued to support them.

But now...

Now she had no idea where her loyalties lay.

With the man she loved and knew would never return that love or the very company that raised and made her the person she was today.

"Here to see your parents?" Though it was blatantly obvious that it was the only reason why Zack would even consider coming to the village, endangering not only himself and Cloud but Mr. and Mrs. Fair as well.

Though it was to be expected if he saw the ruins of what was once the Gongaga mako reactor.

News of what had happened to the Mako Reactor in Gongaga had hit the Turks hard and they had immediately rushed over to the little country village to check out the situation themselves, helping the survivors clean up the mess and retrieve the bodies as well as ensuring that Zack's parents were among the survivors.

It was hardly a consolation considering just how much damage the explosion had caused, but Mr. and Mrs. Fair had survived the ordeal. They were shaken by the events, but alive.

"Yeah, so?" Zack glare came back with renewed force, making Cissnei's heart ache even more. "What's wrong with that?"

"I see." She ignored the pain in her chest, maintaining a blank poker face. "They're alive, if that's what you came here for."

Zack's glare immediately vanished, being replaced with weary relief at the news that his parents had not gotten caught in the explosion that had taken out more than half of his hometown. He let out a sigh that Cissnei was sure he had been unaware of.

"Yeah, well..." His shoulders slumped over as he considered Cissnei's earlier words. "I guess you're right. It _was_ pretty careless."

He paused and turned away from the Turk.

"We'll be going."

Then walked away.

Cissnei watched Zack's retreating form, her mouth going dry as she willed herself to say something, _anything. _She didn't want Zack to leave.

Not just yet.

"Be careful." She finally managed to get out. When Zack slowed and came to a complete halt, she added, "Security is very tight right now. Apparently... another target is in the area."

Cissnei had to word this carefully. It had been over four years since the incident at Modeoheim, but it could still and possibly was a sore subject for Zack.

Zack's glowing blue eyes, that reminded her of the bright blue sky, focused on her.

"Who?" He asked.

This was it. Might as well get it over with and hope that Zack didn't react too badly to the bomb she was about to drop on him.

"Angeal."

Cissnei braced herself for the oncoming storm of what she expected would be Zack freaking out at the fact that his _mentor, _who was long dead, supposedly being seen wandering around the world if the reports from both ShinRa and his _fan club_ were anything to go by.

But to her surprise, Zack didn't react as she expected him to. No jaw-dropping followed by a demand as to where he his teacher had been last sighted, but rather a look of thoughtful contemplation.

"I see..."

Cissnei's expression twisted into one of incredulity. "'I see'?" She repeated. "He died by your hand!"

At this, Zack's body tensed and she regretted her insensitivity on the matter.

"You're not surprised?"

Zack shook his head and seeing her puzzled expression, explained.

"I think he may have helped us escape ShinRa Manor." Zack rubbed the back of his head and a rueful grin appeared on his lips. "Told me I tarnished the SOLDIER name before leaving. It was thanks to him I broke out of the tank I was dumped in and was able to get Cloud out as well."

It was Cissnei's turn to look thoughtful as she mulled over the SOLDIER's words.

"Interesting."

It was. Who was she to say that the ghost of Zack's mentor hadn't visited him and urged him to break out of the laboratory was impossible? Even if the theory sounded somewhat out there... it wasn't impossible.

And it sounded just like Angeal to come back from the dead in some form and give Zack a lecture on honor. Just like back then before everything started going wrong. Besides, Zack's theory could also be backed up by evidence.

"The sighting reports were true."

"But why would he come to a place to Gongaga?"

It didn't make sense as to why such a high ranking former SOLDIER would come to his hometown, a little village out in the country side, of all places.

The Turk chuckled. Seeing Zack's head tilted to the side, reminiscent of a puppy that had no idea what it's owner was asking it to do made her chuckle even harder. Why would Angeal come to his pupil's hometown of all places, she wondered if that was what he was thinking at the moment.

"He came here to see her." Cissnei said once her laughter died down and her expression softened. "What other reason could there be?"

Zack remained silent before shouting out a warning to his mentor, alerting him that the Turks were in the vicinity. It stung to hear him say that, but she kept her mouth about it and allowed him to yell out the warning.

"I'll give you ten minutes." She warned him. "After that..."

Cissnei gave him a stern look.

"I return to the Turks."

"Return?"

Cissnei turned away from him, avoiding his gaze.

"Right now, I'm not in the mood. I can't bring bad news to your parents."

* * *

For Zack's sake, I sincerely hoped that he wasn't sitting at his parents' place and eating apple pie. Other wise I was going to kick his butt once he came back.

...

...

...okay, it was highly unlikely he was actually sitting at the table and eating dessert with his mom and dad since he and Cloud were still on the run, but what the hell was taking him so long? We avoid every town we've come across to make it harder for ShinRa to track us down, but when we arrive at his hometown where security is likely to be tight on the account of his parents living there, he takes his sweet time?!

...

...

Smacking the back of my head against the motorcycle passenger cart, I let out a long sigh when I realize just how much of an unreasonable jerk I'm being. The solitude must be really getting to me.

Okay, calm down Belle. It's been a while since Zack saw his parents. If he wants to have a lengthy reunion with them that involves homemade dinner, pie and stories being exchanged then he can.

I just hoped he didn't forget about us. It was starting to get boring with just me and a catatonic Cloud sitting here and doing nothing. There was only so long I could hold a one-sided conversation with someone who was unable to talk back.

At the moment, I was sitting on the ground with my back towards Cloud. The only things I could do to entertain myself/distract myself from the boredom was either stare ahead, at the ground, or at the sky. Or I could draw or scribble on the ground with a stick or rock.

Or option number three: I could wander off and explore for a bit.

But that meant I would have to leave Cloud on his own, which I was still _not_ comfortable with. Something could easily happen to him in my absence and it would be my fault as I was responsible for him whenever Zack wasn't there to babysit us. Not to mention leaving Cloud on his own now would be betraying the amount of trust Zack had placed on me.

And betraying Zack's trust struck me as being wrong. Especially considering the emotional baggage he was carrying.

"This is so boooring." I moan to Cloud for the -oops, lost count of how many times I'd whined to him about how bored I was.

I knew it was childish of me to whine, but the fact that there was nothing to do except continue talking or stare at nothing in particular was getting to me. At this point I was actually _hoping_ that the enemy would burst onto the scene and order the arrest of fugitive First Class SOLDIER Zack Fair as well as demand that I hand over Cloud. Having ShinRa catching up with us was a bad thing, but at this point anything to break the monotone atmosphere of just waiting for Zack to get back here so we could leave was welcome.

If Cloud was able to talk or communicate in some way, I was certain that he would have long ago told me to be quiet because he couldn't hear his own thoughts over my innate chatter.

I know I would have if our positions were reversed.

And as life and karma would have it, my thoughts of breaking the monotone of waiting for a certain spiky haired SOLDIER were going to bite me in the rear. _Hard._

Hearing a loud thud I looked up, expecting Zack to have _finally _come back only to find my jaw dropping at the sight that greeted me.

What in the world?

It wasn't Zack. Instead I found myself staring at a rather overweight man who was carrying a messenger bag of his own.

An obese man with graying hair, a graying beard and wearing a lab coat. He looked like a doctor. Or possibly, my eyes narrowed at the thought, a _scientist._

And the guy wasn't alone either. Flanking him on both sides were red and black creatures carrying scythes. Whatever they were, they weren't friendly.

What puzzled me was how he and his friends had gotten so close to us without me hearing him. My senses weren't as sharp as Zack's and I wasn't exactly paying attention to my surroundings, but I was pretty confidant that I would have long heard this guy and his companions coming from a mile away.

As well as smell.

When was the last time this guy ever took a bath?

Just as I was about to pinch my nose to block out the man's ripe scent, I spotted the small, stubby black wing sticking out of his back.

...oh.

That explained how he was able to get so close to me. He flew-

Wait a minute...

Doing my best to ignore the fact that he had a _wing _of all things sticking out from behind him (as well as his body odor), I decided to see what I could make of him.

He looked rather sloppy in general; from his ruffled clothes, to his stance and finally his ugly looking wing. He didn't look very threatening at a mere glance, but there was something about him that had my mind kicking into high alert in seconds and me drawing my guns as I slowly stood up and addressed him.

"Can I help you with something?" I asked him warily, inserting myself between him and Cloud and making sure that my guns were well within his view; a warning that he better not try anything funny lest he wanted to get shot at.

If he did try something, I would start off with a warning round and then start aiming for the vitals.

I did not like the way he was staring at Cloud_. _The way he was standing, the way eyes shifted and how his gaze was unfocused told me that there was something extremely wrong up there in his head and that he wasn't completely all there.

"Can I help you?" I ask in a wary tone when he didn't say anything, instead opting to continue staring at Cloud.

"...give me the boy." He said in a raspy voice, his eyes not leaving Cloud as he answered. "...he holds the cure for the degradation."

The man started moving slowly towards Cloud and I.

I flicked the safety on my guns off immediately. There was going to be no reasoning with the man, so without thinking about it I aimed the gun that I held in my right hand and fired at him.

The bullet sliced through the air, embedding itself into the doctor/scientist's shoulder, causing the man to stumble backwards several steps and further away from the motorcycle. The monsters by his side shifted, getting ready to attack. I kept an eye on them as well as the man advancing towards us.

Most people would have been horrified at the thought that they shot someone. That wasn't the case with me. I just _shot someone,_ but the only thing on my mind right now was that I really didn't like the way he had been staring at the comatose blond or the way he had demanded that I immediately hand him over with the implication that the crazy man was _not _going to take _no _for an answer. I didn't know what degradation was, but whatever this madman had in store for Cloud was probably not a good thing.

And Cloud had suffered enough to last him several life times if the way he was right now was an indication of anything.

"I don't think so." I said, glaring at him. "Back away or this time I won't miss."

And I wouldn't. Already I knew that I would be aiming for his heart or any other vital area of his body in the next few seconds and I would not feel anything about killing him _at all_.

I didn't expect him to listen to me, but I didn't expect him to summon what looked like overgrown worms either and then sic them on me.

"Augh!" My body reacted before my mind did as I threw myself to the side to avoid having my stomach ripped out by the teeth on those things when one of them got a little too close for my comfort. I also barely managed to roll away when one of those creatures stepped forward and tried to take my head off with its huge scythe.

While I managed to keep my head on and avoid being disemboweled, it was a big mistake on my part as I had just left Cloud out in the open and at the mercy of those worm things, the not-sane man and those grotesque creatures that tried to take my head off just seconds ago.

"Damn it!" When I got back on my feet again, I saw Dr. Insane was reaching for Cloud and was just seconds away from touching him. If he and his minions grabbed Cloud, they were going to take off the way he came and there would be no way for me to follow him and his cohorts.

"Keep your hands off of him!"

Rushing forward, I shot at the worms that moved forward to stop me.

My bullets only served as distractions and since my gun didn't have limitless ammo, I eventually ran out and had to shove them back in their holsters as I quickly tried to figure out another way to stop the man.

Being weaponless was not going to stop me from getting to Cloud. Stupid and suicidal since most people wouldn't pull this kind of stunt without a weapon.

But then again, most people wouldn't _find themselves_ in my position...

I managed to move past the worms as all I had to do was kick them down and stomp on them so that they wouldn't be able to get up long enough for me to reach the blond. And while I had managed to get past the worms, I still had to face off against the scythe wielding creatures.

And those things were probably more intelligent than the worms.

Just as the thought of tackling one of them and stripping the creature of its scythe struck me so that I wouldn't be unarmed, a white blur rushed past from behind me and knocked the creatures down.

...

Talk about _convenient_.

As I gawked at what had just happened, the tables turned on my saviour as the very creatures he knocked down recovered and started pushing them around. And to make things even worse, the guy who was trying to kidnap Cloud joined in and body slammed the person on to the hard ground.

"Hey! Three on one isn't fair!"

Snapping out of my daze from the sudden intervention, I ran over to the nearest scythe wielding monster and kicked the legs out from underneath it, making it fall flat on his back. I then jumped on the monster, using my combat boots to smash its face in and keep it down for a few seconds.

A few precious seconds that would allow me to snatch its weapon out of its hands and then behead it.

Pushing what I just did to the back of my mind, I lunged at the man in the lab coat as he tried to attack the other person who dropped from the sky. Said person, who I now realized was a man with a _white wing _wearing a striped suit. That was the only observation I was able to make as I had to hack at the worms the man in the lab coat sent my way.

"Izzy! Cloud!" I heard Zack shout from behind me, his boots thudding the ground heavily as he made his way towards us.

"You're late!" I yell at him, not bothering to turn around and face him.

"I know. I'm-"

I cut him off as we didn't have the time to talk about this.

"Never mind. Help the guy with the white wing out and deal with the worms. I'm going after," I turned in the direction that the obese man had fled to, "him."

"Hollander..." Zack hissed, his own eyes narrowing at the sight of the man.

"Is that his name?"

"Yeah." Zack nodded. He frowned, then shook his head. "Don't underestimate Hollander. He may not look like much, but that doesn't mean he won't have any tricks up his sleeves."

"Got it."

And then we parted. Zack to take care of the worms and the remaining scythe monster while I went after the now christened Hollander.

"You!" He snarled when I caught up with him. For the first time, he seemed to realize that I was actually there. "You've ruined all my plans!"

"Yup!" I said. "And not at all feeling remorseful about it."

The man snarled and I lunged, swinging the scythe to slash at him.

No more holding back. No mercy. I couldn't afford to let him live as he would only come after Cloud again and again in his deluded thoughts of thinking the blond held the cure to this degradation he was suffering from.

I got him across the chest, ripping his shirt open. Before I could lunge again and bring the tip of the weapon down onto his beating heart, he inhaled and breathed out putrid, yellow-looking fumes.

"AUGH!" I dropped down on the ground to avoid the poisonous looking gas, but unfortunately, I still managed to inhale some if the sudden numbness setting into my limbs was anything to go by.

I tried to get up, but my body reacted much slower than I wanted it to and I suddenly found the hand holding onto the scythe being painfully crushed underneath the weight of a shoe. It didn't help that the owner of the shoe was anything but a light weight. Reluctantly, I forced myself to look up into the crazed face of Hollander.

I didn't think that Hollander could portray himself as being any more insane than when he had demanded Cloud. But now he was proving me wrong as his eyes rolled around in his sockets and a bubble of spit began dripping from the side of his mouth.

"I thought you looked familiar." He spoke, grinding his foot down even more into my hand. "You bare a strong resemblance to that little whore who nearly unraveled my plans in the past!"

He was heaving as he ranted.

"It's because of her that fucking failure of mine has refused to listen to me, tried to kill me even! It was her who planted those doubts in his mind that I was just using him and didn't even have the cure!"

I tried to pull my hand out from underneath his foot, but it was futile.

"Damn her! Damn her to hell! It's because of her that I'm suffering from degradation like that failure! It's because of that wench that my revenge against ShinRa has failed!"

"You sure it isn't because of your own incompetency that everything went bad?" I said, getting tired of him cursing the girl who apparently screwed with every plot this guy ever came up with and was now blaming for his current condition.

Stopping his rant, Hollander looked down at me. And then grinned.

Uh oh.

That grin did not spell good things. At least for me.

"And now I have her sister underneath my thumb."

"In your dreams!" I retorted. I may not remember Rosalyn, the woman who was supposed to be my sister, but I was beginning to resent his comments. I tried taking back my hand from him just so that I could wipe the arrogant, smug look off of Hollander's face as I connect the scythe with his heart or any of his other vital organs.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a flask that carried a vile looking liquid, his grin growing even more ominous as he light shook it above me in a taunting way. And just when I think that he's going to drop the contents of the liquid onto my face, Zack came out of nowhere and barreled into him, knocking Hollander to the side and right off of my hand, freeing me and the weapon.

But Zack wasn't finished yet. He didn't give Hollander the opportunity to recover as he rammed his huge sword right into the man's gut.

Hollander floundered, now impaled against Zack's weapon, screaming and gasping in agony.

"Duck, Zack!"

Without asking why, the SOLDIER did as I yelled. Gripping the weapon I had stolen off of one of the scientist's minions, I swung it and slashed at his throat, ripping open Hollander's jugular just as I had with his shirt earlier and ending his miserable existence once and for all.

* * *

"What was that?" I asked, my chest heaving as I struggled to keep myself standing.

Unfortunately I failed and fell onto my knees, feeling completely exhausted. I couldn't tell if it was because of the sudden adrenaline rush beginning to leave me or because of the poison I had inhaled earlier.

Thinking of Hollander breathing the stuff out from his mouth made me nauseous.

"What was what?" Zack looked genuinely confused.

_"That!" _I point to where Hollander's collapsed form had been just moments.

Right after I had slashed open the man's throat, a green light had begun to surround him. Or to put it more accurately, drift away from his body. The soft green light began to grow bigger and bigger until it eventually consumed him. Once it consumed him, Hollander's body vanished and the only indication he had been there was the trails of green drifting towards the sky.

"Oh. That's... that's Hollander's body returning to the Lifestream."

"What's a Lifestream?"

It was Zack's turn to look at me incredulously.

"What do you mean 'What's a Lifestream'?"

I rolled my eyes at his 'you-should-know-this-it's-common-sense' tone. "Exactly what it sounds like. What is a Lifestream? I know it has to do with life and a stream, but that's all I've got from the words by themselves."

Zack slapped his forehead, muttering underneath his breath, "I don't believe this..."

"Believe it." I told him. For some reason, I felt like I had just said some cheesy, overused line that's supposed to be used to encourage people or to be optimistic about a situation.

Zack massaged his temples, looking all for the world as if he had a major migraine.

"I'll explain it to you later. But we have to go back to Cloud and... Angeal."

I tried to force myself up, only to fall back onto the ground again. I try several more times, but each attempt left me weaker than before until finally I couldn't even lift myself up.

"Uh, help?" I turn to Zack when each attempt turned out to be futile.

"Sure." Zack walked over and pulled me up by my arm.

"Thanks."

Zack turned away and began to walk back to where Cloud is... as well as the Angeal person he mentioned.

"What's the matter?" The ex-SOLDIER asked when I didn't follow him.

"I... don't know." For some reason, my vision was blurry and my limbs felt like they were being weighed down by lead.

I was vaguely aware of the fact that I had dropped onto my knees _again_ and that Zack had given a startled yell at my sudden collapse. Falling forward, my head hit the hard metal ground with a thud, pain exploding in my mind when it made contact with the floor.

The only thing I knew after that was darkness...

* * *

**And Belle collapses after her first battle!**

**Urgh, I was going to have her go with Zack and talk to Lazard as well, but then I got lazy. And then I thought that the poison Hollander breathed on her might affect her, though the reaction would be delayed and the adrenaline rush that kept her moving. Belle winning her first battle seemed like it was pushing it, so I decided to have her collapse. **

**For now. **

**Don't worry... I plan on having her win her battles in the future, this is just her first one. And most people tend to not do well in the first battle. But she did pretty well... which will be explained in further chapters. Belle doing what she did in battle is hardly that of an inexperienced fighter, for sure.**


	5. Anger

**Okay, starting this chapter just the day after I finished Chapter Three. Probably because I am really excited to write the first part of this chapter. Which I'm sure will have many of Aerith's fans after my hide. Though I'm pretty sure that anti-Clerith fans will like it.**

**So anyways, guess I should start. Unfortunately, not much happens in this chapter but some issues get cleared up. I promise that there will be action in the next few chapters to make up for it!**

**Note: In case you haven't realized it, I've changed a few things. Like Belle's age is pushed up a year and her sister's name is Rosalyn now instead of Samantha, since Rosalyn seemed to suit her better. But that's all.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Final Fantasy VII Compilation. I do, however, own the characters Isabelle 'Belle' Maxwell as well as Rosalyn aka Rose.**

* * *

**Chapter Four - Anger**

_When Cloud and Barret started arguing, I left the group so that I wouldn't be the one who had to deal with breaking them up and to just get some peace and quiet to myself._

_Something that was hard to come by these days considering how our group seemed to grow with each passing day._

_Unfortunately, I didn't realize that I had been followed. _

_Not until that person spoke._

_"...Belle?" _

_My body automatically tensed at the sound of her voice coming from behind me. I turned slowly, forcing my body to relax as I faced the person who had addressed me by my nickname, feeling a tinge of annoyance as I did so. I had kindly asked everyone in the group not to refer to me by the shortened version of my name, but Cloud as usual ignored my requests and called me 'Belle' anyways, much to my ire._

_And now the Flower Girl seemed to think she could use my nickname too._

_She was the last person I wanted using my nickname._

_"Isabelle." I said flatly. The woman in question looked at me, confusion and hurt all over her green eyes as I rolled my own eyes and clarified what I meant. "Call me Isabelle. I don't like being referred to by my nickname."_

_"But Cloud calls you that." _

_"_Cloud_ doesn't get that I _don't like_ being called that. And I don't let him get away with it scotfree either, so don't think he's some kind of exception." In fact, I've smacked him on the head fifteen times over the whole issue and he_ still _calls me by that infuriating shortened version of my name_.

_"Oh..." She said, putting her hands behind her back and looking at the ground. She looked like a little girl who had just been caught doing something she shouldn't have and was now getting chewed out by a parent._

_Clad in an ankle length pink dress with only a short-sleeved red jacket worn on top, Aerith Gainsborough personified the terms girly-girl and ladylike. This was emphasized even more by her long brown hair being pulled back into a plait and held in place by a pink ribbon._

_"What do you want?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral. I didn't need to snap at her. It was obvious to everyone by now that, for some reason, I did not like Aerith Gainsborough and avoided her whenever I could to avoid blow ups and awkward situations._

_Which amused me somewhat since it wasn't dislike that fueled my animosity towards Aerith, but rather anger._

_Yeah. I was angry at the upbeat, cheerful flower girl who most people found hard to hate. _

_And yes there is a different between not liking someone and being angry at them. Even though I didn't completely hate or dislike her, I didn't like her all that much either._

_"I was wondering if I could talk to you?" Aerith asked, a tone of hesitancy in her voice. "Alone?" _

_I raised an eyebrow at the hesitancy. This was new. In the short time we've been in the other person's presence, Aerith has almost always remained her chirpy upbeat self -even when I shot her down coldly during the few interactions we had with each other._

_Also, when we usually spoke to each other, it was when the others were around. If just to make the atmosphere somewhat less tense between the two of us and that I didn't send Aerith flying with one of my fists, though I would never go that far._

'No,' _was my immediate thought but I hesitated when I saw the pleading look in her green eyes. She desperately wanted to talk to me about something and for a moment I saw glowing blue instead of Aerith's characteristic emerald green. I blinked and found myself staring at green again. _

_"Fine," I finally sighed. Only because I knew that my conscience would nag at me for days if I coldly told her to go away._

_Aerith was not my favorite person at all, but I knew where to draw the line. Draw the line as in I don't send her off somewhere to get killed_ on purpose._ I couldn't allow my personal feelings to get in the way things, so I tended to fall back on my professional persona. The persona that did all the planning and dictated what everyone would do. The professional side that spoke with a monotone voice, but was also _fair _in making decisions and the reasoning behind said decisions_.

_Seeing the look of relief that spread on her face made me cringe a little. Did I really act like that much of a cold-hearted bitch towards her that my not showing any form of antagonism towards her made Aerith feel relieved?_

_"Okay!" Aerith bounced back to her normal self for a moment before her demeanor sobered and she looked serious. "B- Isabelle. I wanted to talk to you about Cloud."_

_I felt my body stiffen a second time. She had better not be trying to get information about him off of me again...!_

_Aerith must have interpreted whatever expression I had on my face correctly because she was quickly raising her hands in front of her in a placating fashion. "Oh! I'm not asking any questions about Cloud!" _

_"Then what is you want to talk about?" My voice was as flat as I could make it to squash out any form of emotion -the main ones being anger and annoyance. _

_"I..." She bit her lip. For a minute, I thought she had lost her nerve to tell me what she had wanted to say in the first place when she spoke again. "I thought that I would tell you that I was going to stop pursuing Cloud."_

_Huh? _

_I stared at her in complete and utter disbelief. _

_Why exactly was she telling me this? Wouldn't it have been better to tell Tifa? It was the the bartender/fighter who would have been happier with the news. It was obvious to anyone who was really looking that Aerith's flirting with her childhood friend really bothered her, though she didn't really say anything about it since she and Aerith were good friends as well. _

_Though me, Nanaki, Barret and Cait Sith were the only ones who saw this. _

_"Uh... what?" I said intelligently once my brain had at least managed to partially digest what she had just dropped on me._

_Aerith didn't say anything right away. She looked down at her hands for several seconds before before looking back up at me. _

_I couldn't help but blink at the expression on her face. She was smiling, but it was a sad smile and she looked so much older than her actual age -which was twenty-two I think._

_"Cloud reminds me of my first boyfriend." She said. "I guess... that's why I wanted to get to know him better. But that's all over with now."_

_I forced myself not to react to her words. I knew_ exactly_ who Aerith's boyfriend was._

_He was the very person I owed my life to. _

_Except that I now would never be able to repay all he had done for me._

_Because he was dead. _

_Aerith's boyfriend was former 1st Class SOLDIER Zack Fair._

_A true hero._

_He had found me knocked unconsciousness in the middle of the road with no idea how I got there in the first place and had recognized me as being Rosalyn's sister. He had taken me in, even though he was already weighed down with looking after Cloud on top of having the very company he had once worked for tracking him down._

_I had seen the devastation on his face when he had read Aerith's letter, the one that the canine like Angeal clone was carrying in its mouth, stating that the letter in his hands would be the last one she would ever write to him and that she was moving on from him and his memory._

_Zack took the letter about as well as anyone in his position would. _

_And in the end it got him killed._

_It also had the unintended effect of breaking Cloud out of his mako induced catatonia just in time to witness Zack's death and to have the legacy of a hero being passed down on to him. Which had traumatized and broken Cloud so much that his memories were a mess and that the memory of his best friend who had died so that he could live was completely wiped from his mind._

_It wasn't Aerith dumping Zack that pissed me off. I was not so narrow-minded to think that after four years of no contact and not knowing what had happened to him that she had no right to dump him and that she had to continue to wait until she was old and grey. In fact, she had every right to do so and most females would agree that Aerith did the right thing._

_I could handle Aerith wanting to let go of Zack. _

_What I couldn't forgive her for was what she had said during the beginning of her flirtations with Cloud, that day when we were at the sector six park._

_How she had said that her relationship with Zack was 'nothing serious' when I knew that Aerith had meant practically the _world_ to him. Hearing Aerith say those words was like a slap to the face; like Zack's death had been in complete and utter vain._

_That his trying to see her even with ShinRa hunting him down had been for _nothing.

_I knew that it was stupid, irrational and unfair of me to think that, but whenever I thought back to that day... I could only feel nothing but resentment towards the Flower Girl._

_Because that particular memory was always followed by Zack dying in the rain, of Cloud screaming at the sky in agony and grief, my own anger towards myself at being unable to do a thing as the light in the former SOLDIER's eyes faded..._

_How many times did I find myself wanting to scream at her what had happened to Zack? That he didn't just up and leave her for some other girl? That he had been on the fucking run for months while trying to keep two other people and himself safe? That it was inadvertently her fault he had forgone caution and fucking died because ShinRa had sicced a goddamned army on him and riddled him with bullets? That he had bled to death on a freakin' cliff and that his last thoughts had been about her?_

_But I always held my tongue when all I wanted to do was yell at her. _

_Zack would have never forgiven me if I told her how he had died and why and it ended up haunting her for the rest of her life._

_As much as I hated that Aerith had so easily brushed the SOLDIER's memory aside, I hated disappointing Zack in any way as well, even if he was no longer around to be disappointed in me._

_I could also never forgive myself for, no matter how much I disliked them, breaking someone. Because I know that telling Aerith about Zack would devastate her._

_And the last thing I wanted to do was deal with a grieving girlfriend (well ex-girlfriend) who blamed herself for something she inadvertently caused. Which wasn't fair of me to say, but it was... true. _

_Not to mention that Zack wouldn't have wanted his death hanging over her like a dark cloud._

_"...What." I said when my brain rebooted again. I shook my head to clear my thoughts. "Okay, so the only reason you were interested in Cloud is because he reminded you of someone?"_

_I mentally compared Zack to Cloud and came up with nothing. Zack was confident in his skills, but he wasn't arrogant about it. _

_Cloud, on the other hand, needed a good punch to the head three times a day to keep his ego in check. And two smacks upside to tell him to watch the attitude too._

_So yeah, I wasn't seeing the connection. _

_And I didn't see what both Aerith and Tifa saw in him either. He was handsome, I'll give him that, but his cockiness and I-am-so-much-better-than-you-because-I'm-enhanced attitude was a major turn off in my opinion._

_Yet somehow I managed to put up with him._

_"...isn't that kind of unfair to Cloud?" I finally say. "No one should have to play second fiddle to anyone; especially to an ex."  
_

_I mean, I know I would hate it if someone saw me as another person's replacement._

_Aerith tensed. I saw her hands tremble and mentally smacked myself for my insensitivity, even if it wasn't intentional. _

_"I..." She stopped, not sure what to say and I saw her eyes water a little._

_I cringed. Shit. My words had sounded harsher than I originally intended._

_I shook my head. "Never mind. If you don't want to answer the question, you don't have to. It was insensitive of me to say so." _

_As an after thought, I added, "Um, sorry."_

_Aerith nodded and left. Rather quickly, I might add._

_For ten minutes I had some time to myself. Time that I used to mentally smack and berate myself. While I hadn't been my usual cold self towards Aerith, I knew that had to be one of our worst conversations yet._

_After those ten minutes were up, my solace was interrupted by the thuds of footfalls._

_"Okay, what do _you _want?" I didn't bother turning around since I was already sitting on the ground and staring at nothing in particular. No need to strain my neck on them when I already knew who it was._

_Tifa and Aerith's footsteps were lighter (and I highly doubted that Aerith would be back so soon to talk to me), you could easily hear Barret from a mile away, Yuffie tried to be sneaky but you could also hear her since stealth wasn't exactly in her vocabulary, Nanaki's pads hitting the ground were soft foot falls and Cait Sith often announced his presence in a loud booming voice._

_So that left only one person. _

Cloud.

_The blond in question snorted and immediately took a seat next to me. "Nice to see you too."_

_I didn't bother replying. Silence settled between us until he broke it again._

_"I'm guessing Aerith told you?" _

_"She did." I nodded. _

_"How did that go?"  
_

_I glared at him and then rolled my eyes. "I didn't bite her head off, if that's what you're hinting at. Contrary to belief, I don't make it my life's mission to make Aerith's life miserable."_

_"I know. But everyone knows that you don't really like her." _

_"I'm angry at Aerith; there's a difference." I retorted, folding my arms across my chest. "Trust me, you'd be able to tell."_

_Cloud chuckled and I punched his arm in place of an automatic response._

_"Ow!"_

_"You deserved it." I didn't even bother hiding the grin on my face. "Anyways, would you happen to know why Aerith suddenly decided to come up and talk to me about..." _

_I made a chopping gesture. _

_"...breaking things off with you?" _

_"I might have asked her if she was really interested in who I was... or if she saw someone else in me. Like her first boyfriend." _

_I winced. Cloud knew about Zack. He may have not remembered his best friend, but I told him about Zack over and over again until he finally believed me that yes, the 1st Class SOLDIER had indeed existed._

_Though to his credit, I had practically been in tears at the time. He probably just said that to get me to stop crying; he told me he hated it when girls cried and I was no exception, even if all I did was nag at him. I don't think he really believed me until he met Aerith. _

_"Is that it?" I asked, knowing that there was more to the story than that. "Hope you were tactful about the whole thing."_

_Cloud and tact weren't close friends, if you got what I mean._

_"...I also said that it's best we didn't go any further if that's what it really was." He sighed, ignoring my last sentence. "And that I didn't appreciate being someone else's replacement. You were right when you said that she wasn't really looking... at me."_

_I stayed silent for a bit. There was no need to say that Cloud had been some sort of rebound from Zack._

_"I _hope _you were nice about it at least." _

_He snorted. "Of course I was. Despite _your _contrary__ beliefs, I'm not a jerk." He paused. "Most of the time."_

_"Thank god." The sarcasm in my voice was very hard to miss._

_Cloud hit me on the shoulder for that._

_"Well... things are going to be awkward for a while." I sighed, not looking forward to the next few days._

* * *

I knew that it was rude to stare but I couldn't help it!

"Is this sort of thing normal?" I finally asked.

"The one-winged angel thing going on?" Zack asked.

"Yeah, that."

"Erm..." Zack rubbed the back of his spiky head, unsure of how to answer that.

He looked at the man with wearing the suit, now identified as Lazard, who chuckled in response.

"No. It isn't exactly 'normal' as you put it."

It was night time and me, Zack, Cloud and apparently now Lazard were miles away from Gongaga, camping out in the open and far away from any of ShinRa's troops according to the newest member of our group. Zack lay Cloud close to the fire, but not close enough to accidentally catch on fire while the rest of us crowded around it.

Having wings proved to be very useful as Lazard could report anything he saw from above, which was why we could risk the camp fire right now.

When I finally woke up from that weird dream, it was to Zack and the one-winged man chatting about something. At the time I had a headache that threatened to split my skull, so I stayed still and quiet for a bit and listened into their conversation since I had nothing else to do. I wasn't exactly sure what they were talking about, but I heard a 'Genesis' being mentioned a lot. From how they conversed I got the feeling that Zack and Lazard (whose name I didn't know at the time) were old acquaintances.

I would have continued listening in on the conversation but Zack caught on to me faking sleep so I had no choice but to force myself up.

Apparently Hollander's poison finally took effect, which was why I had collapsed back in Gongaga. Zack had given me an antidote to fight off the poison, but my body still felt somewhat numb.

As soon as the headache was gone and I had convinced Zack that I was _perfectly fine, _Zack introduced the guy with impeccable timing as Lazard Deusericus, the former executive who had headed SOLDIER and gave those in the program their missions.

Well until he started funding the great SOLDIER rebellion and was eventually outed for his role in the whole thing.

And now he was an Angeal clone, dying from degradation. The same degradation that Hollander had been ranting about until I slashed open his throat.

Degradation, apparently, was the deterioration of the body due to Jenova cells. Subjects suffering from the deterioration maintained any injuries they suffered when the illness set in; meaning that while the wound could be closed to prevent blood loss, it wouldn't fully heal and the person in question would be a lot of pain. The person would also rapidly age and they took on a less than healthy parlor.

If the physical symptoms weren't bad enough alone, how they affected the person's mentality made it even worse and downright nasty. The deterioration part didn't just affect the person's body but their _mind _as well.

It hacked at the person's mental stability and emotional control. Restraint in particular towards _anger _was what was affected the most.

They didn't need to tell me that degradation's symptoms equaled a raving lunatic.

I nearly felt sorry for Hollander. _Nearly._

"So who is this 'Genesis' you keep mentioning?" I asked Lazard when he finished his explanation of what degradation was and all it entailed. "His name pops up a lot in the explanation, but you never explained who he was."

Lazard turned to face Zack, who suddenly seemed really interested in the campfire.

"You didn't tell her who Genesis was?"

"...no."

And by the look of his face, Zack wasn't going to tell me who Genesis was any time soon. Lazard sighed, knowing that it would be left to him to do all the talking.

"Genesis Rhapsodos was one of my best SOLDIERs. In fact, he was the Commander of SOLDIER until," Lazard let out a long sigh, "he led the mass desertion, taking most of the men with him."

"You helped him." Zack pitched in helpfully.

"Indeed." Lazard nodded without missing a beat. "It was I who funded Hollander and Genesis's plan of gaining vengeance on ShinRa."

"So... a description of him?"

Genesis Rhapsodos was easily identified by the colour red. He wore a red leather jacket that practically touched the ground. It was coupled with a black ShinRa SOLDIER first uniform.

He had medium length auburn hair (that was white now thanks to degradation) and the same glowing eyes that characterized ShinRa's genetically enhanced trademark SOLDIERs.

He also had a pierced ear, but that wasn't really an important detail.

Personality wise, Genesis, before everything went to hell was extremely overbearing. Overbearing with the flair for the dramatics much to everyone's exasperation and horror. He reveled in the attention and admiration that resulted from being one of ShinRa's top warriors but despite how he preened in public and maintained a good public image, he tended to keep to himself and only truly opened up to his friends.

His friends being Angeal.

Sephiroth.

And then finally Rosalyn and Zack.

My eyebrow quirked at the last two names.

"Rosalyn was friends with him?"

While I didn't remember the woman who is supposed to be my sister, I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't intrigued by what kind of life she had led and who she had been associated with.

The sides of Lazard's lips twitched. "Yes. Though not at first. The amount of damage they caused whenever they got into... disagreements was staggering. It was so bad that I believe that President ShinRa _ordered _them to get along or _else. _He also stated that all of SOLDIER would suffer if something wasn't done."

Zack snorted. "Oh, yeah. I remember that. That's when Angeal and Sephiroth teamed up and locked them in the training room and refused to let them out until they learned to get along with each other." Zack then broke out into a grin. "It took them _weeks _to fix up the training room, but at least they came to a truce and were pretty good friends after that! Hell me, 'Geal and Seph were counting the days till they started dating!"

"They were that close?" I asked, beginning to get why Lazard was exasperated that Zack had told me nothing about the Crimson Commander. If he was _that _close to Rosalyn...

Zack's grin immediately vanished, replaced by a pained expression.

"Yeah. They were."

Feeling that I had treaded on to something that I shouldn't have I switched topics.

"What was Rosalyn like?"

I didn't think that Lazard could look even more exasperated than he already was but at that moment he proved me wrong.

"Zack, did you even tell her _anything_?"

"Other than the fact that ShinRa is the bane of all evil and has monopoly on practically the entire world? Nope." I answer.

Lazard glared at Zack who found the fire suddenly interesting again.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt to tell..."

Rosalyn Maxwell, like Zack and the Big Three, had been a 1st Class SOLDIER. Not only was she the first woman who had made the program, but she had quickly rose among the ranks within a year, much to the jealousy of many of the other SOLDIERs who thought that she hadn't earn her position through skill but rather special treatment.

"Sexists, much?"

"Unfortunately. Many of my men challenged her, trying to prove that she didn't deserve to be a SOLDIER."

"Did she kick their asses?"

"Every time."

Beautiful, strong and the only woman within a throng of men? It was hard not to notice Rosalyn Maxwell and it wasn't long before she gained a fanclub, consisting of both guys who drooled over her and of girls who admired her strength.

"She had a fan club?"

"Most of the 1st Class SOLDIERs did."

"Ugh."

But that had been a while ago. Last anyone had ever heard of her, she had died in the Nibelheim incident. Not only that, but...

Zack's head snapped up, his eyes filled with anger and his expression displayed outrage.

"What do you mean ShinRa reported her as the one who killed me and Sephiroth?!"

"I know that wasn't what happened Zack." Lazard said smoothly. "But that's what ShinRa reported. Though I didn't believe them, especially considering that you're right in front of me when you're supposed to be dead. However, I am curious to know what really happened."

"You mean, you don't know?"

"I'm afraid not. Genesis' recollections on what happened were not very... reliable."

"Wait? Genesis was there?!" Zack exclaimed.

"Yes." Lazard nodded and then winced. "He... did not take the news of Rosalyn's 'death' very well. In fact, it made his already fragile mentality even worse. But Genesis was very adamant that it was not Rosalyn who set Nibelheim ablaze."

"He's right. It wasn't." Zack's eyes hardened. "It was Sephiroth. He was the one who burned down Nibelheim and killed everyone."

* * *

**And I'm finally done! Whoo... I wrote this in record time. Can't believe how inspired I was to get this out. **

**So I'm sure you guys have noticed a few things? **

**Like what's Dream!Belle's problem? And wow, Genesis wasn't at the reactor that day to drive Sephiroth over the edge, though he still managed to go over it anyways.**

**Don't want to spoil any thing, but I'll leave you this interesting tidbit: Zack is going to confront Genesis in the next chapter and we finally get to the famous cliff scene! **

**Whoot! Finally!**

**Okay, just so you know, the whole first part of the chapter? It is not Aerith bashing, though I'll admit I had fun writing it. Depending on who you are, you'll either like it or hate it. I repeat, the purpose of that particular dream won't come to light for a long time. But I assure you that it will make sense later on.**

**And don't forget to review! Reviews are love!**


	6. NOTICE

**Notice to my Readers: **

**I'm dropping this story... and doing a major overhaul of it. **

**The reason for this is because for the past few days I've been going over the chapters and I've come to the conclusion... it isn't all that good. The organization isn't all that great and Isabelle's personality seems to be all over the place. If I think just editing it would have been good enough, then I would have just left it at that. **

**But I think it needs a lot of working on. So while I'm dropping this story, I'll be working on another similar to this that I assure you will be much better. In fact, I've gotten the prologue posted up right now so if you want, you can go read it now!**

**It's called 'Legacy of the Last Virtus'. **

**I apologize to those who liked this, but... I just wasn't satisfied with it and I could already see the story just going downhill from there. Hopefully, you'll like the other story just as much. **

**So once again, I apologize for this inconvenience. **


End file.
